I really hate the act of complaining. I despise it. I refuse it. I drown it out. I dismiss it. I marginalize it. I do not empathize with it. Unless a progressive thought or plan is put into play to remedy the problem, I don't want to hear a fucking word of it. The aura of discontent without a course of action was a dagger to my soul.
But why?
Why is it that I hate it so fucking much. Why do I view mountains and molehills all the same? I never want to spend an iota of time on the feelings one experiences when dealing with a problem, I only want the focus placed on the solution.
For a substantial part of my life, I lived by the words "Act or forget, complaining is silly." I lived by those words, truly. I chose to forget a lot.
I've started Couples Therapy with my wife recently.
It started because of our fights that I deemed as molehills.
I marginalized the problems. I didn't view them as problems.
They were hiccups. Like dust in the wind.
I marginalized the problems. I marginalized my Wife's feelings.
Why are we fighting over dust? What's the fucking point?
Can't we sweep this under the rug?
Can't we let the wind blow it away?
Can't we forget about it and move on?
While talking to our therapist, it made me remember how little value I put on my own life, my own feelings. It wasn't a choice that I made, maybe it was, but it was a persistent feeling that was bound to my soul at a young age. The feeling and emotion of having no value? It grew up into a man. Dropped into an ever-growing, internet driven, and over-exposed world.
I was able to falsely feel validated that my life wasn't so bad. My feelings didn't matter. The scale that my trauma weighs on seemed to be pretty light next to the killing fields of Cambodia... and if I couldn't convince myself enough that I was okay, there were plenty of vices that can occupy my overthinking, overworking, over-analyzing mind.
Was TV not enough to drown my thoughts? Let me put music on top. Was the music and TV not enough? Let me play some sensory overloaded video game. When the trauma was "light", those solutions were enough. They weren't always enough. They were never enough for my brother.
Trauma isn't a sticker that you can scratch off or hide. It doesn't come in one size. It's not a flavor of the week. Trauma doesn't come with a label for everyone to understand. It's not a television program that you can turn off because it was too traumatic. The show goes on.
Some trauma can appear like a form of mold. Slowly infecting and latching on to every form, thought, and feeling without showing any signs of presence. Some trauma doesn't go away. Some trauma is perpetual. An elephant in the room that you grew up with and dare not speak about to a member of a Nuclear family. The violent alcoholic with an illogical, fascist, dictatorial, fear-driven grip that deposed its own will on the people. Is the alcoholic happy? The people must be happy. Is the alcoholic sad? The people must be sad.
What are the options that a boy can take when their hero becomes a fearmongering tyrant? When he can feel the fear and sadness in the hearts of his family? When he can feel the anger, sorrow, anxiety, shame, frustration, doubt and disappointment in the tyrant, himself? To empathize with the devil? How does the boy scale his problems against his father's?
Am I making mountains over molehills?
I must be.
When I was around 7 or 8 years old, my father brought me and my siblings
to a construction yard. Being the young dumb immortal turd that I was
back then, I kept running around throwing caution to the wind. Of course
the wind leads my foot to a wooden plank with a nail sticking out,
through the soles of my shoe and through my foot. I remember very
clearly how scared I was. It wasn't the pain I was scared of or how much
blood there was. I was scared of my father.
To be continued.
