Be very careful when someone says that they love you. Love is a very strange word in that the concept of this powerful emotion can mean two different things to two different people.
Salsoul Orchestra (feat. Loleatta Holloway) – Runaway
For many who roam the face of the earth in predatory fashion, it very well can be a wonderful opportunity for advancement when encountering one who appears to crave this sometimes euphoric state of being.
How we are introduced to love in practice in our formative years will dictate how we execute and “show” our love in our relationships down through the years.
If we as youngsters see a manipulative mother who appears to only see her husband as a provider and someone to usurp finances out of then that child might have his/her view of a loving relationship blurred and warped because of the constant example of money being a factor in the first relationship example that they have had to learn from.
If a youngster has a father who always seemed to be away out of the home in his spare time aside from work to hang out and get a few beers with his drinking buddies then how will that child be fully empowered to know how to love properly as an adult?
What about the stereotypical child who witnesses their father viciously beating their mother right there in the home severely tainted the innocence of childhood with those painful memories of domestic violence? Many children will grow up to feel that this type of behavior is the norm even though they are told that it is not. The connection of internalizing that this behavior is wrong many times is detached and some of the males who were raised witnessing domestic abuse will continue this tradition by finding someone to whom they can treat just in the same manner as well as the women raised in this fashion who will allow her man to beat her down because deep down it is what was normal for her growing up.
Now let me say that those words are not written in stone, MANY children who grew up in homes where domestic abuse was the norm were so affected by it that they REFUSED consciously to ever repeat the ugliness of domestic violence and have grown up to be some of the best examples of parents that anyone could hope to be.
Other healthy external factors and influences could help shape and mold the psyche of such an individual growing under such horrid circumstances. Being spiritually grounded as well as being made aware of what IS a healthy lifestyle by concerned support systems can make the world of a difference. Thank God for them!
That being said, and correct me if I am wrong, but one could almost always find that one who is an abuser comes from a home where abuse was accepted as a regular happening. This in itself is really a subject for its OWN blog as it is a vast issue with so many opinions, experiences and views. I merely put my foot in this one as an example.
But from what I have experienced, there are so many slow burning “under the radar” types of abuse that really never get addressed or even realized. Many of us are currently in abusive relationships and don’t even realize it, we just feel a discomfort coming from somewhere but just can’t figure out the origin of this slight pain and trudge on anyway in the relationship just like a person grinning and appearing to have a good time at a formal dinner function wearing a painful pair of shoes that look good but are one size TOO small!
One of these “types” of relationships are of the variety of what I have named “Emotional Socialism.”
This kind of situation is one that I have seen pieces of down through the years but never understood it completely until having a personal dealing on an ongoing level with a group of individuals locked into this very dysfunctional union. It is a VERY strange phenomenon to observe indeed because all of the participants involved see absolutely nothing wrong with it yet any attempt to make them see how far off of the mark that they really are from a healthy balanced relationship to each other will make them treat you as though YOU are the strange dysfunctional factor in unison!
A strange position to be in indeed!
Let me describe some of my observances into this group which is really a family situation at the core but contain the addition of others who play an important role in the twisted overall scheme of things who are not be related by D.N.A.
First allow me to say that this type of family dysfunction is not an overnight happening, it takes generations to form and it almost always didn’t start with the participants in your midst. This rhythm is passed down from the parents, grandparents and even beyond that whether they are alive or not. It doesn’t take much to absorb a way of thinking and a twisted way of dealing with things as the baton is passed to the next generation.
It’s an emotionally transmitted disease.
This particular family that I speak of has a very hard time with communication. We are not speaking of the stereotypical case of being slightly shy or leaning toward being quiet, I mean these folks could be in a burning house and literally wait until the last possible second before being motivated enough to get up and say something! Probably because some fire hit someones backside! It’s that bad! But while the youngsters will play the “antisocial locked in their room all day staring at the ceiling” role, they are hell raisers when out of the confines of the house! And as verbal as can be!
After observing this time after time, the red flags began to pop up. And with the signs that were being revealed to me, I knew these were symptoms to a much bigger problem that it seemed like NO ONE in that particular inner circle even wanted to acknowledge!
Now most of you would say that this is normal for youngsters to act like this, it’s true, they do, but let me explain, it goes a lot further than that! It is not normal for a teenage girl to attend church every week, pray beautifully in the service, say all of the right things yet can’t go two weeks without getting a suspension from school for blatantly cursing out the teachers in a violent verbal rampage that always contains four letter words because SHE refused to follow the expected behavior standards set forth by the school administration for everyone.
This didn’t go on for a short time, it went on for YEARS unchecked!
Her disrespectful rebellious behavior landed her in a state of pregnancy at the age of sixteen while still maintaining an entitled “I’m bigger than the rules” mentality even AFTER dropping out of high school and being banished and quarantined to a far away city because what was hidden for so long finally came out into the light and NO ONE would tolerate it anymore NOR did anyone want to subsidize such an unpleasant liability.
Feel sorry for her child…….
But the incident that will forever stick out in my mind was when her mother was on her way to work and was kind enough to offer to drop off her newborn baby and herself off to her fathers apartment for the day. Well, due to rain and heavy traffic, the time went by and there wasn’t much time to drop her off and get to work on time so she told her that it would be best if she could jump out and catch the bus that would be arriving in three minutes and would get her to her fathers apartment in about the same time.
You wouldn’t have believed her response to her mothers suggestion! PLEASE excuse the graphic language that follows, but this story MUST be told as it happened……..
“I’m not getting out of this car to go nowhere! You are dropping me off! I’m not getting on NO GODDAMN BUS! You better call your job and tell them that you are going to be late! I am not going out there YOU MOTHERFUCKING BITCH! Yeah I said it! FUCK YOU BITCH! You always trying to tell somebody what to do! Fuck you! I’m getting out of this car to get on a bus over my dead body!
And while she got out of the car with her baby, she continued to curse her mother on the bus stop while shocked onlookers soaked in that very embarrassing scenario. I couldn’t do a thing because I am not her father and would be locked up for sure! It’s not to say that I didn’t WANT to make her dentist rich! Such are the dilemmas of a handcuffed observer…….
Another youngster (Her brother) in this situation graduated school with honors and is a very intelligent young man who can be very cordial and mannerable in public appearing to be the kind of young man that you wouldn’t mind dating your daughter. That wouldn’t be a problem at all until you’ve experienced his lack of motivation to do absolutely NOTHING with his life except to watch the cable television sports channels all night, play video games all day and watch online porn and sex DVD’s while you are gone all day at your job taking care of the roof over his bead so he can continue his slimy slothful lifestyle. Ad to the mix that he is a pathological lire who wasted the two years after his high school graduation in a state where he SAYS he was trying to get work but couldn’t find it as he flipped from one channel to the next armed with the remote control in one hand and a huge plate of freshly prepared food in the other as he wished all a good day at work as his parents left to earn that money!
All of this was done without his feet ever touching the ground because they were propped up on the living room coffee table while laying back luxuriating on the plush couch!
Some people just have it so good…….
The red flags continued to go up and no one was saying anything about it! Not even their mother who choose to hide her head in the sand and ignore the state of disarray that her kids were in even though those rhythms were allowed to flow into them unaddressed without any preventative measures taken to stop the dysfunctional flow.
I guess she thought it would just go away if she “pretended” that it didn’t exist.
Big mistake.
Moving along, there was yet another brother who was probably the strangest and creepiest of them all. Extremely emaciated in appearance, he made a point to never be seen by anyone at all even in the most normal of situations! Even if he was dying of hunger in his room he would NEVER come out to get a plate of freshly cooked food from the kitchen as long as anyone was out in the living room where he would have to pass to GET to the kitchen.
This was not an occasional event, this went on for years as long as I’ve known him, he would walk on the tip of his toes wearing socks so no noise would be made when he finally did come out to use the restroom or go to the kitchen.
If he heard his mother coming out of her room he would quickly retreat back to his room leaving his “almost” prepared plate on the counter for all to see.
Many were often chastised by his mother when they would inquire about his behavior being strange, it was almost as though they were considered weird for asking! I had my assumptions on what it might have been that made him act so strange, I once made a remark on what I thought it was and literally got my head chewed off for even suggesting what I felt was the problem. In the end I felt some sort of personal vindication on my hunch because when I directly approached this individual one evening when no one else was around about going to a local testing site to have a hair analysis performed to reveal and confirm what was in his system.
His response?
He immediately packed his bags and left with all of his belongings never to return ever again!
I guess I received my answer as to why he acted so strangely.
Reverse psychology sure works! Lol!
I often told a close friend or two that anyone who acted normal around that family would get the “Marilyn Munster” treatment from them, and if you ever watched the old television show The Munsters” you will know exactly what I mean!
When an outsider who now has been assimilated into this family setting has abilities and talents above and beyond this Motley Crew of serial underachievers, it is ignored and not acknowledged. Why? Because it shows up how far gone the in-house failures are and if you are not careful, your dreams will be sabotaged in a covert manner for the mere crime of upsetting the applecart!
So remember, your unique talents and abilities will put you on a position to be isolated so you must hide them every chance you can or you will not be appreciated for showing up the others in their lack of development.
Mandatory efforts that are considered the norm are celebrated as though they are high achievements because of the extremely low expectations that were in place in this household from birth. When in the midst of a setting such as this, all sense of normalcy is thrown out of the window in exchange for the “in-house” interpretations of what the agreed upon “state of normal” should be!
A very strange and awkward position to be placed in indeed.
As you can see, sometimes what appears to be normal on the outside may not indicate what dysfunction lies below. Choose carefully to whom you spend your time with and investigate any red flag that screams for your attention. Everyone has flaws and imperfections and they wouldn’t be normal if they didn’t. The difference between sensibility and insanity is when one cant accept that all is not perfect and instead of facing their imperfections, they work hard to make things “appear” perfect instead of taking the time to improve themselves after a serious evaluation.
It’s called denial.
I’ve seen this phenomenon called “Emotional Socialism” manifest in many other ways and while I can go on and on sharing my personal brushings with this mental state I will speak of yet another manifestation that I am currently observing.
Here is the case of the “shunned child” who is an extreme narcissist that MUST be the center of attention in every situation at all costs and has a never ending support system through her mother who has ruined her child’s mind to make her think that the world is HER stage.
While it is quite healthy to boost your child’s esteem in every possible manner in this negative based world that we live in, the esteem building tactics should not morph into the level of “worship” because when that child grows up they will be in for a very difficult adjustment period once they do not receive the in-house treatment of constant praise, attention and worship that they received at home base.
It’s a set up for a lot of frustration.
But the emotional socialism would come into this scenario with a different twist as anyone who would get involved with the mother of this child was literally forced to look through hours of countless photo albums, old videotapes, listen to the most taxing tales of toddlerhood as well as the forced presence of this child that was purposely engineered to hamper and cease any adult time and conversation that might transpire and NOT be something that gave the child attention.
Children have their time as well as the adults.
Not in that situation.
If any male desired the company of the mother, he first must deal with the category 5 hurricane of the narcissistic onslaught of the delusional daughter. Poor mother. To “get some” (Not to get trashy but this is a reality for many, not to say it’s right but I am calling it like I see it!) she would have to wait for her daughter to go to school or attend some other function as it wasn’t just about “getting some” as it also was about maintaining her Christian facade to her daughter who was being deceived by her mothers false so called Christian commitment to her prosperity preacher and materialistic doctrines.
And because that child never had much contact with her father, except for a brief stint in a failed relationship attempt with her mother, she harbored a deep resentment for her half-sisters (A term that I hate to use but am using it for clarity in this blog), especially the oldest sister because of the deep connection, bond and love received from her father as he has been in her life since day one. Not to mention that as an attention hungry narcissist, she couldn’t stand the drop dead gorgeous pimple free good looks of her younger sister whose physical beauty comes “oh so” effortlessly.
So rumors were spread to destroy her younger sister’s credibility and feed her own esteem issues by rejoicing in the supposed “pregnancy”, going as far as calling and texting her father after no verbal contact for over an entire year to inform him joyously that his daughter is five months pregnant. Translation: “I am truly better than her because I didn’t get pregnant at 15 and I am 22 now.”
What probably made her feel like a dumb ass was that her younger sister WASN’T pregnant and actually goes to the gynecologist EVERY month because of a non life threatening cyst that has been long diminished as she is growing wonderfully and happily.
You see, you can’t call yourself a Christian and rejoice in what you THINK is someones downfall even when THEY put it out there like that to see what the response would be!
15 year old’s sometimes do and say the craziest of things, but the good that came out of it is that the whole world saw how you played your hand TOO SOON as a dedicated Facebook page watcher and keyboard terrorist in revealing what you really are deep inside behind the fake ass grin and Cheshire cat smile.
So much for the virtues of Christian love…….
So as you can see, much of what “appears” to be a great catch may just be someone else’s own tired situation dressed up nicely to catch the next unknowing victim. Give me that person who can state their issues straight up and honestly, who stare their imperfections directly in the eye and not give them the power to halt them from living a blessed life! In this world where so many of us work so hard to “look” like the real thing, give me that person who will let it all hang out in order to BE the real thing! While you might not like what you hear at first, at least down the line you will have absolutely no unpleasant epiphanies!
Love and emotions were not made to be measured, compared, pasteurized and homogenized…….and especially not compared. Make sure that not only WHAT you call love is actually the same article but the way we love must be executed in the same comparable manner.
Would you take a trip to South Korea with nothing but Czechoslovakian currency in your pocket as spending money? I think not! so do make sure to “align” and define what it is that you are feeling with your mate, your peers and your situation so that you do NOT wake up in a sorry state of affairs faced with a violent tsunami of regrets to face from within!
Misinterpreting not only this one very important word can cause so much drama and strife in your world but also coming to terms on how it’s also doled out is just as important! Emotional Socialism has many repercussions that are often detected when it’s to late.
Don’t be afraid to express your true feelings and needs to your mate not only in the beginning but all throughout the development of your relationship so that things run smoothly with no malignancies growing hidden in plain view.
Good advice “ain’t no” good unless you USE IT!
