Motivation

It's hard to tell the difference between motivation and ability sometimes. So often, if I lose all motivation, I say I can't do it. And I can list a whole host of reasons why I can't do it, too.

But the truth is, I can. I just don't really want to.

Which sounds horrible. The truth often does, of course, but there you have it. I don't want to get back on track and do my routine again.

I have a lot of motivation to achieve what I want. Sometimes. But then something happens, and suddenly I don't care. Nothing really matters to me for a while, and I have to drag myself out of the depressing pit where nothing matters, and back to the motivated, want-to-succeed person I really am.

I got my motivation back a short while ago. I started my routine back up. I hadn't quite made it to the blogging stage when the boy who raped me came back to my place of work and asked me if I was pregnant.

And just like that, motivation dropped to nothing.

I hate to admit something like this has such power over me. I hate to think how just a single meeting can change the course of my life completely. I want to believe I have control over my emotions and thus control over my life.

And life likes to remind me otherwise. Frequently.

I've decided to stop trying to force motivation. I need to recognize it when I have it, and jump on my work like no one's business, but I don't think I'll ever be able to completely control my emotions or life. And I do believe I'm going to get this train wreck of a change back on track and start achieving things again. I promise.

Just watch me go.

A Cold Kind of Anger

I am descended from two very messed up bloodlines. My father's side is what I call pure evil. And my mom's is crazy. Me, I'm a very nice person who is passionate and loving and good.

I'm also just a little bit crazy and a tad evil.

Not a lot. Not like the others in my family, that's for sure. I talk to myself, I live in imaginary worlds, and I tend to freak out in crowds. That's about as crazy as I get anymore. And I'm not very evil. I don't like to hurt other people and I don't plot to take over the world.

But I do have a very cold, calculating side to me. It usually only comes out if I sense a threat to myself or others, but it's always there, beneath the surface of my soul.

And it's always scared me.

This side of me adds up the universe in cold, uncaring sweeps, and looks at the world and sees logic and math, not people and lives. It sees probabilities, and how to use people to get what I want. It's never hot, never passionate, and it is achingly patient.

I recently commented on YeamieWaffles blog, and I said some things from that side of myself. I told him about how to destroy a person using social connections and how simple it was if you just did it subtly. And I used that side of myself when I was raped. I calculated how best to handle this potentially violent man and how to get away relatively unscathed. This side of me did not care that if I followed through on this plan, I'd lose all chance at prosecuting him for his rape. It only cared about survival.

Now he's free to go on raping other women. Nor does he realize what he did was even rape.

That is the consequence of my choice. But that side of me still doesn't care. Because it was the best way to survive, and that was all that really mattered.

The man I told everyone about yesterday has always scared me, too. Not because he's dangerous. But because he reminds me of this side of myself. That evil little piece inside my soul that can destroy a life. He revels in that side of himself. He's everything I am in that segment of my heart and that scares me.

Because I don't want to be like him. Or like the other evil people in my family.

I still care about others. I still hate hurting people. I will never be a violent person. But I do have a strong vindictive streak. And I hate that this side of me is so alive and active right now. I'm sure it has to do with the anger I'm feeling.

I wish anger was hot and terrible for me, like it is for other people. That it flamed as high as when my mom loses her temper, and then fizzles itself out when it runs out of fuel. My anger is cold. It feels like my emotions, usually so alive and active, just die inside me. Like all the heat of my soul is extinguished beneath a glacier of uncaring anger.

It releases from me in one of two ways. Either it builds until I explode and use words to tear a person into shreds. Or it slowly and systematically strips a person of everything they care about in the same social destruction I described to YeamieWaffles.

It scares me. And yet it has saved me many times. Rarely do I allow my anger to do what it wants. I've seen too many people do irreparable damage both to themselves and others by indulging in their anger. But I do allow it to save me when I need it. Like the rape. And when I was stalked by a guy at work. And when that girl followed me home from school and threatened to throw a knife in the back of my head. And when my mom and dad get a little too abusive.

I wonder if I'll ever learn to trust this side of me. Or at least accept it. That would be a change I'd like to see.

Healthy Relationships.

Back when I was reading everything I could get my hands on about change, I remember I would cringe every time it got to the part about relationships. Each one said the same thing: You need to surround yourself with people who are supportive of your change and who emulate such an example in their own lives, if you really want to make an effective change in your life.

These are called healthy relationships.

And I encourage such relationships in my daily life. I'm quite good at finding and continuing them. I make friends with people on here and at work who help me stay on track with how I want my life to be like.

Unfortunately, I know that the 2 most influential people in my life DON'T support me. In fact, you could say they do everything in their power to stop me.

These people are known as my parents.

Not because they don't love me. It's not even envy. In part, I think it is a subconscious desire to keep me young and dependent on them for everything. Also, I've had a pretty rough life, and they've been along for that ride. They are terrified that I'm going to get hurt even worse and want to "protect" me from the world.

Getting raped did not help matters. I admit, I need to learn a lesson from what happened in how to handle men and dating in the future. I do not agree with the concept that I should give up on going out with my friends at night because (and here I quote) nothing good can come from being out late at night.

Allow me to insert the fact that I'm 23 years old in here.

I understand my parents' need to protect me. I understand that they want me to stay safe. But I refuse to quit living because someone decided to make me a victim again. I've allowed my fear of living to hold me back from too many things in life, and it's not going to happen again. I can't go back to that sad, little depressed soul who barely left the house. I just can't.

My mom and step-dad have fed into my depression for years. I don't think they are even aware of doing it. But they've kept me wrapped up in them and myself for as long as I can remember, encouraging self-destructive behavior that I now realize should have been stomped out long ago.

I can't let that continue. Even though it has harmed my relationship with my parents, I want to be a better person and I determined at the start of this that I would do whatever I had to to place my relationship with them on a more healthy footing. For all our sakes.

The current situation has set me back quite a bit, however. I don't know how I'm going to set my family life back on track, but I'm going to take a guess and say it will be a rough ride.

Here's hoping I can hold on.

This Is Normal???

I was talking to some of the women at work about what had happened (which I covered in my previous post I Know I Said I Wouldn't Do This), and as I talked I found a very uncomfortable trend.

Almost every single woman I spoke to had had at least ONE experience with rape. Most had two or more.

I'm sorry, but am I the only person to find it disturbing to think that RAPE is NORMAL?!?! It happens so often in society (though rarely spoken of in reference to one's self) that most every woman I talked to today could describe a scenario in which she was raped or almost raped within her lifetime.

And they don't talk about it to other people! Which, on the one hand, I can understand. If I weren't such a blunt person, I wouldn't talk about it. Even with my blunt personality, I had to fight the urge to bury it all beneath a fake smile and camouflage the fact that everything had suddenly changed. For someone like me, that's amazing. I say almost everything. I love to communicate and I rarely miss an opportunity to exercise that ability.

So the urge to bury the shame of rape is pretty strong, if it could actually still my tongue for even a day.

This made me think even more. All these women are walking through life brushing up against other women, the vast majority of which have suffered this terrible hell called rape at one time or another. And instead of reaching out to one another and sharing that burden, talking about their experiences and their means of overcoming the emotional repercussions, they allow shame and fear to crush them into silence.

I can't help but wonder if that is part of the reason rape has become "normal".

On top of everything, by talking to all these women who had been through much the same as I had, I found myself feeling stronger and stronger. Because I looked at them and thought to myself: "They don't act terrified all the time. They've moved on with their lives and shaped relationships with other people despite what they went through. They aren't jumping at shadows or crying at the drop of a hat. And if they can manage to do something that amazing, so can I."

So by remaining silent about rape, we are actually denying other women and ourselves the opportunity to heal and find strength. We are crippling these victims from finding the support they need to grow back into confident young women.

Of course, it isn't acceptable to just talk about rape in society. At least, not if it isn't about the most recent news article or serial paperback featuring the subject. Isn't it sad that we have to distance ourselves from the subject to discuss it at all?

And why? From a fear of gossip? Of being blamed? Of being ridiculed?

After all, aren't our own minds doing a good enough job at ridiculing at blaming ourselves as it is?

I may be gossiped about and badmouthed behind my back for admitting to date rape at work. I may be blamed and ridiculed and speculated about. But I don't think I will be. Because I talked to real women today, one on one, about real things that had effected us both as human beings. Rare are the souls who will open themselves up to you in a private setting and then blab your secrets to all who come along. After all, they gave you some of your own ammo from which to fire back.

But even if I am gossiped about for discussing it, I'm glad I did it. I couldn't have collected more useful data from going through years of therapy (been there, done that), internet searches (lots of upbeat articles about how "This Isn't Your Fault"), or books (recommend therapy and not blaming yourself).

These were real women leading real lives every day. They got choked up when they thought about what happened, they nodded their heads when I described my thoughts and emotions, and they completely understood and commiserated with my actions and choices. And they had moved on. They weren't stuck in the past indefinitely. They weren't still wallowing in depression and fear. They had picked up the pieces their lives had become and put them back together to make something beautiful.

So I'd like to dedicate this post to all the women out there who have been through this before. You took a life that had been cracked beyond all seeming repair and somehow glued the pieces together into something amazing. 

I only hope I can be as strong as you.

I Know I Said I Wouldn't Do This...

I told Mark I wouldn't talk about depression and I would keep things on this blog upbeat from now on. I tried to do that yesterday. I tried to forget and pretend like nothing had ever happened.

But some distractions can't be ignored.

I feel so drained and lifeless. I feel like everything I am has been sucked out of me. I eat like 1 meal a day and my sleep is filled with terrible dreams. What little sleep I can get, anyway.

You see, night before last, I was date raped. I've been raped before, so I knew the drill and I didn't think my mind could handle another violent rape, so I just went along with him in the end. And my cooperation in the whole thing makes it incapable of prosecution, basically. I mean, they can go through the trial, but nothing will come of it.

So my mind is stuck in that night. I can't seem to pull my thoughts or emotions away from it. I just want to forget the whole thing ever happened. I want to pretend it all was just one of my fantasy scenarios.

But it wasn't. It was real. And I don't WANT to forget, not really. Not rationally. I want to remember and learn and get better again. I can and will survive this. I've done it before and I'll do it again. I'm stronger than this, strong enough to deal with what has happened and move on with my life.

That's what I'm telling myself, anyway. But underneath that, I feel like everything is dead inside, like all my drive and ambition to achieve and succeed is just...gone. Everything that mattered feels empty and worthless. My life feels pointless. I feel pointless.

It drives me crazy when logic and emotions don't line up. If I had handled things on a purely logical front that night, none of this would have happened. If I had handled the situation AFTER on a purely logical front, everything would have been better. If I could just deal with the aftermath of the whole situation now with pure logic, I could move on and use it as a fuel to make me stronger.

I don't know if I can do that. Emotions are just so strong. How do you deal with the emotions of a date rape? How do you deal with the feelings of vulnerability it leaves? It had taken me years and years to get to the level I was before. Virtually my whole life. How can I do that again?

I say I'm strong enough, but inside I wonder if that's true.

I guess I'm about to find out.