It is taking me some time to post this. It just feels way out there and I can't help but worry about what people will think of me. I know logically it doesn't matter. I have a good grip on myself and my feelings and I'm not as weird as I previously thought I was. I have these symptoms that might be a little more common with the others I talk to online.
So here goes....
I have tons of horror films on the DVR. The husband tells me that if people saw that, they'll think we are nuts. I was going to post the list, but its just too weird, even for me. But they are kinda normal. Some old stuff, true story movies, I like one particular movie that I watch continually and that is the Jodi Arias' Dirty Little Secret. Please keep in mind it is not the story itself that holds me captive. It is the murder scene and some other parts, but the murder scene especially. I think I am relating to it.
I have other movies as well and they stay on there and I have been watching them over and over, whether I'm sewing, or reading, they are always on. I'm very much into God as well and this is a big contrast in my life. So much so, that I tend to do this when I'm by myself, so no one thinks I'm strange. I live a double life.
Pandora Vitalis has said in Q1605's blog that she watches horror movies because they are a "stay alive manual for her". Wow, isn't that something? I've been years no contact, and still I amuse myself with these things. Even going outside at night to load the woodstove, is like an adventure for me. Yet, I'm still afraid of certain things. I'm very familiar with fear. It is entertaining and yet it is scary for me. I've been doing this since grade school and I still like it.
I like to drive alone at night, on the roads here, even though sometimes I swear I can see a creeping hand behind me. Even though, I feel at peace. I like feeling safe. I believe horror movies are connected to that. I'm not expecting much from writing this. I was hoping for some cure, because usually by the end of writing something, I at least feel better.
I have to work on myself, there is no therapy available for me. I stump even the counsellors. Psychiatrists, two of them, was trying to assess me if I was bipolar. I am not bipolar. They couldn't come up with anything. What is it then? They did say I had PTSD. That to me is not a diagnosis, that is a symptom of something else. I've had some of the best therapists. I've been told by my therapists that I'm like talking to an equal, I know just as much as they do, so "I'm all better". Then I would try to proceed with life and stuff would happen. I would be a victim again. Job losses, I couldn't stay on task. I lived in poverty. People everywhere were beating me up emotionally, and sometimes physically. Why wouldn't I defend myself? I knew I should, I knew the process of defending myself. So I must be all screwed up. Was it my childhood? Did my therapists or myself even ponder that idea? If they even asked me about my childhood I would have told them I had the perfect mother. We went to school in clean clothes everyday. Some of my friends didn't have such clean clothes. They had to wear their clothes for 2 days before they could change them. I had the perfect mother. She fed us well. She sacrificed herself for our comfort.
So on and on I would go to the therapy office, then back to work, etc etc., till many decades later. How I've found the answers is a long story. But if I just compare myself now to who I was a year and a half ago, I believe the awakening cured me about 95%. I know there are still things, but the worst is over. I was all messed up and not knowing why.
I sometimes think, "I'll just keep going to church and everything will be fine, regardless." Ok, but I always think my sweet exterior that keeps something dark inside has no business in church. Some might think I'm demonically possessed. Or that I'm not believing in deliverance enough, etc etc etc.
This has kept me from talking about it, even blogging about it. Do I want this situation taken away from me? ei, do I actually want to stop watching horror movies? Big question. Truth is, I don't know. I imagine that existence I have of turning on something gruesome to watch, taken away and I can't help feel like I'll be missing it. Perhaps, my problem isn't bad enough for me to want it gone.
If I spoke to a pastor or someone from the church, they'll tell me just to stop doing it. lol, That would be like a well minded crusty doctor telling me, "Well, just stop doing that." Or even my therapist, when I had one, will say, "just stop doing it. Do this instead. The instead thing didn't cover any of the needs that would be covered while doing the "bad act".
Regardless, I feel no one will be present for me in this situation. It is weird how many would believe that God just takes things away from us, never requiring some kind of growth. I stay away from those crazy Holy Spirit driven churches where the people would be lying on the floor for hours, "Just soaking up God." I never got that. Or just demand things in prayer. Oh, I really do wish it was that simple. I often think if that was the case then you could plant a seed in the ground and the fruit will be right there right away. But I get the impression throughout scripture God is more of a farmer. A season for this, or a season for that.
I recently got through something. Something that took a long time. God put me through some learning before he would give the deliverance. Then looking back, I can see it was all God now, who did the work. I had to grow and learn before I received my awakening.
My relationship site helped me so much. But I have to keep in mind that this woman is an evolutionist, and not a Christian. There are some Christians who do the work that she does, just not as powerful. I would love to buy all her programs. They are so expensive, I only got to buy one. I bought the cheapest one too. Some of her programs cost a whole months salary for some women. But they are paying it.
This is a woman who studied to be a lawyer, who was very sick most of the times she was studying. It was the stress. She has now found her true passion. I suppose I don't have to buy the programs. I could do what she does and just sift through piles of useless information to find tidbits. I could fly to Europe and listen to a famous anthropologist speak, to sift through that information for a couple of tidbits, spend thousands of dollars doing so, I could do all that. But I followed her teachings instead.
That is where it all started for me a year and a half ago. And all my life I kept the secret of watching horror movies, while acting like I'm sweet and good. While I like flowers and pretty colors, I like the depravity of horror movies.
That hidden pain I live with daily. I think there are lots of reasons why. Pandora shared one. I've also heard its because we are so familiar with it.
I imagine I feel "safe" while watching them. I don't know if its much of anything else. Here I am in the nice, warm, house, and all this violence is happening in front of me. But I'm safe and secure through it all. I don't watch it all, no, I stare at the parts that are tolerable but turn away when its really very gruesome, even for me.
DISCLAIMER: I'm about to talk about something that might be offensive, but very pertinent to me. Please, if you must comment, realize I require total presence always. If you don't connect that's fine, but realize I do connect.
I watch this one murder scene over and over again. The movie made a remarkable job of having a guy stabbed to death over and over again, whilst he was trying to get away. The whole scene lasts for a few minutes. He almost falls out of the shower where the stabbing started. He gets out of the shower, he looks in the mirror to try to clean himself. He gets stabbed again and again, he starts to crawl out of the bathroom, and ends up dead in another part of the house.
Ok, wow. I can't believe I remembered all that. I watched it so much though. I see him look in the mirror to clean himself up. Kinda pointless considering the murderer was standing right behind him and he turned his back on her to clean up. Kinda pointless, don't you think? But what else would he be thinking of at that point? He might be in complete denial to what is going on, and to that I can relate. Then he tries to crawl away, absolutely pointless don't you think, as you know she can catch him, no problem, and so to that I can relate. And as he lay there dying, he looks up at her, and to me it looks like he is going to give her a big kiss and appreciate this behaviour from her. And to this I can relate.
I think of mother. When I was talking to my aunt about all this, I was opening up, and she told me of their abusive childhood. I told her that somewhere mother disappeared, and out emerged a monster. I can't believe in a bad seed theory because it isn't scriptural, as God says we have made the choice to have a seared conscience. So therefore, it can't be inherited. Well anyway, I think of mother's own abusive childhood, and then when I came along, it was like the stabbing from the movie. She kept
"stabbing" at me over and over throughout my life and I looked and "trusted her enough to turn away" and continued to trust. And that is what I mean by I can relate.
I think that as I write, I get some more of the blame taken off me with each and every word. Not that it always is easy to understand, but I believe this is not my fault for being weird. I keep thinking of that man in the film, watching his face, it was done really well, I can relate.
Not that that part gives me comfort. It gives me the whillys actually, and I relate to the whillys too. Am I really trying to get over this? No. I think the point I'm trying to make and I've been trying to make throughout this whole blog is just to acknowledge everything. That is the first step. And we don't need to understand every step after, just the first.
Q here. It's a surreal experience having a loved one murder someone outside your house. Even weirder watching them do spin control. I have been to few therapists. Usually court ordered.......which usually means I have run afoul of some law. They usually fall into two categories. 1. Ones that give me a creepy look and realize they are out of their depth. And ones that look at me like some project that they will tackle after a couple of drinks. In The first category the the relationship is short lived. And I quickly sabotage the second. It's like the groucho marx theory of councilors I ain't ain't wasting time hanging around a guy that is stupid enough to think he can fix me.
ReplyDeleteMy luck with counselors hasn't been so hot. When you get old too, [Id say over 40] they consider you a lost cause and entrenched in your ways. I used to shock the therapists. A few would have some training as I wrote in that one article and diagnose me with PTSD. Now with all the health problems they tell me to work on "acceptance" or gratitude lists. Some are nice and well intentioned and even like me, but they are normal middle class people with healthy bodies, they are not a 500lb Aspie with multiple health problems who had a psycho child-hood. I overwhelm them. I think you may be getting that outcome too, they can't imagine our lives.
DeleteI had good counselors in 20s and 30s, this is later developments. My last good one was the Aspie specialist but I can't afford her. The very latest was okay too, but I know she has never dealt with anything like me.
DeleteI know. Its that spin control that has me fascinated. I keep looking at his reactions and behaviours, and its like me. I feel it too.
ReplyDeleteIt is the thing with me and counsellors. They always give me the creepy look. One counsellor was dumbfounded that I couldn't take care of myself. Couldn't defend myself, although I logically knew how to. Her eyeballs flew right open in surprise.
One time I was at a self-esteem group session and the therapist took me aside to give me shit. She said I was rude as I couldn't read people too well and that I was offending the others. I was to 'smarten' up or I would be kicked out. I wanted to say, "Um, then can you help me with this? I don't know how to act around people." That situation should have been obvious, a no brainer, but they have no clue.
Unfortunately, that is what we are stuck with.
I pissed off a counselor once at a depression support group. They had all these disabled people who they were putting in make work programs. one guy had worked as a paralegal or something and they were having him piece widgets together for 20 cents an hour or something. I remember getting mad and saying "You can't find that guy anything better then that?" I was livid. Then they got mad at me when I started ranting about Chicago and saying it was hell on planet earth and I was going to get out come high hell or water. They said I had a bad attitude, but it was that attitude that got me out of that place and my almost 10 years in my rural town, a move that saved my life.
DeleteTheir attempt at damage control is where the hilarity ensues. The picture that comes to mind for me is when the little old lady comes home on that cartoon and sylvester has tweety stuffed inside it's mouth. He tries to look on his best behaviour while there are feathers sticking out around the whole perimeter of his mouth
ReplyDeleteI love that image, it is definitely fitting. I spent a lifetime in counselling and I think they did a lot of damage. To look at me confounded, I mean, isn't this their job? They can't do their job. They have neither the training or the skills to handle any of this. And the pills? They just dull your senses further allowing more abuse.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing out there are these blogs.
Told to reconcile with my abusers. They were nuts. Why didn't any apply the teachings in their textbooks about sociopathy and what I really dealt with??~
DeleteIf you are poor too, they don't know what to do with you. Lifecoaching and life improvement often takes a lot of the green stuff.
They don't seem to want to try. Sociopaths are serial killers to them, and they can't see that killing is not just of the actual body of the person but their soul. When I finally got out an abuse shelter and they got me an apartment, I got this wonderful high paying job. Mother yelled at me at the condition of the apartment, rust on the car, but so what right? I could have lived in a ketchup bottle. I would have made it! That job would have given it all to me. But no, I stayed in contact with mother. the rest is history.
DeleteAnd you have to dissect them to separate the wheat from the chafe.
ReplyDeleteI knew a murderer who worked as a social worker after years in prison. I saw his eyes, he had not changed. And yet he could parrot out the same advice as the others.
ReplyDeleteAnd that murderer got in trouble stealing money from the mental health clinic and was led out of the police in hand cuffs. Last I heard he was working for the tax office. I swear I'm not making this up.
ReplyDeleteAround here in my town it seems an official or business person gets caught embezzling every minute. Some one ripped off village funds, this other one ripped off the senior center. I said to my husband, "How many aren't getting caught?
DeleteI've said elsewhere that I think the only reason my mother had never committed murder was her fear of getting caught. Plus, that would've required her to do some planning and she is generally an anxious person, so all that would've been too much for her. I think I made her nervous because I saw through too much.
ReplyDeleteI never felt safe around her. When I was around 4, I dreamt she attacked me, and when I defended myself, her head popped off (totally not bloody, just surreal). I woke up feeling guilty despite that in the dreams she was the one who attacked me.
I think horror movies made my fear more manageable.
Yes, they never want to get caught. But I think they are generally murderous at heart, and we knew this at an early age, we could feel it. And, actually my own mother was obsessed with other people dying and killing, she would talk about it all the time. She would have these weird conversations about wanting to see someone suffering in a horrible death. And that she was sorry she never got to see that.
ReplyDeleteWhen she had a knife in her hand while cutting a roast it was best to be out of the kitchen while she did that, she had that "look". It was scary. She threatened with butchering, stabbing, crucifying while we were kids. And she was having fits so you kinda believed her.
That is a strange dream to have at the age of four when life should have been only about playgrounds and picking wildflowers. I can see how in that dream you might have felt guilty despite being attacked. We feel guilty for their behavior. And that if we defend ourselves, something bad will happen. It is the story of my life.
But, yeah, the horror movies are tools we use to survive on a daily basis.
I was thinking of this post when I went to see the movie "It Follows" yesterday.
ReplyDeleteMy mom used to think she had a psychic power to wish people and animals dead. And she was clearly pleased by this even though she feigned mild dismay. I'm pretty sure she gave up that little delusion when I didn't drop dead for her.
So many narcs believe they have psychic powers. My mother believed she could get rid of warts, or give you warts. They are evil enough to want their own children dead.
DeleteI think the sociopaths and narcs are all murderous. Some actually do it like Qs mother, maybe some others don't get caught.
ReplyDeleteI have a fascination with true crime. I don't watch horror movies or read horror novels though I did years ago, but I have read every Ann Rule book and even have read books about serial killers such as one about a woman who found out her father was one. I even read books on wars like WWIII and prisoners of wars and other ones like that-totalitarian governments, prisoners, concentration camps. I feel like I am doing a research project on "evil". I know normal women don't read books as "dark" as these. Sometimes I worry I am sinning as a Christian to do so, sometimes I feel like I reading books to process life and reality and trying to survive. Oh add to this readership extensive books on self-defense and prepping I can't afford.
I don't share my viewing of movies with the rest of society. They would think its just horrible. They would tell me that. There would be a lack of presence with me, I just won't say anything. I heard a teaching at church that talks about not living under the law but of deliverance. That we can't force some kind of behaviour on ourselves. We have to desire and want the deliverance, and I think that is the point where I'm at.
DeleteI know I don't watch these things because I am desiring to sin, they just have me spellbound.
I agree about desiring of deliverance. I know my church would question my reading of true crime too but for me there is no titillation in it, just more a study of evil, and maybe even preparing, like I want to be the one who escapes if a Ted Bundy enters my life. I agree pray for deliverance. I am praying for it too.
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