Thankyou for your beautiful posts.
yes, ending the cycle of abuse is something to be very proud of, it is really something amazing that will impact positively to generations to come!!
... well, life walks in mysterious ways, I'll say. Sometimes it's hard to understand why we must go through the difficult and painful times. (And I'm not so sure there is a better answer to that than the effects of bad casuse--oftentimes people say everything has a meaning but I don't know for sure about how so many vicious things that happen could be meant to be...)
I for one have spent what should have been my youth and "the best years of my life" in almost full-time total self-denial, as a survival strategy.
What for?
Well, due to this uncontrollable place called the Internet I can't go into all the details here, but due to a series of pivoal rejections and experience of sexual abuse outside the family and some other things I have for many years been driven by a show no mercy self-hate that has made me attempt to erase everything about myself. I guess one could say I have been a living dead for a number of years... until not long before Brokeback came out, that I was really at the very end of my one-way road of self-denial.
I had to make a decision to whether I was going to spend the rest of my life in that dark spot, well-aware that it was doing the wrong thing, or if I would do what would only be the right thing to do; make a very scary turn and go back to the point where I could find my true self again.
(I'm very sorry for my vagueness.)
Needless to say, Brokeback Mountain had a tremendous part in enabling me to make up my mind and finally, finally grab the chance of going on with life without self-denial and fear as the driving forces.
The film and the BBQ get-together have changed my life, I'll tell you that!
The get-together was both wonderful and painful, as meeting all the great people was amazing! But.. I did actually experience very painful rejection as well from some three persons who I thought really were my friends but who basically stopped talking to me after having met me.
Plus, towards the end of the weekend, I could not stand against my shyness and felt very awkward despite all the lovely people around.
This might sound like shit that just happens, but I was at a place where this affected me really, really bad--the persons who began ignoring me meant a lot to me, and for the rest I blamed myself mercilessly for failing to function even among Brokeback people.
That threw me into depression, because, if I couldn't work among BBM people, then where the heck would I??
To not make this post any longer than it already has become, I'll finish by mentioning that the weeks and months following the BBQ, I got some help and finally took the last steps away off from the c(o)urse of self-denial.
And regarding the few persons who changed negatively towards me I can now see that it must be their own problems with whatever caused the sudden death in our contact, and not necessarily me or my problems.
Today, I am beginning to feel so so much better and relieved than I have in many years and I'm forever grateful for that, for BBM and the BBQ as well.
I am beginning to actually feel very proud about myself so one day I'll be proud enough to quit this vague lingo.
hugs to everyone! now I must post this before I regret and erase