TooOld4This

Sorry you're feeling so low, S_G_W I too, cut myself when i was about your age (older, actually; i was in college). I still have the scars on my left arm 40 years later. i remember how i hated myself so much, only the act of hurting myself could silence the self-hating voice in my head. Wishing better days for you.

Hope you can get some healing soon, Tangysalt

I can make another recommendation, Bella, from my own experience: take your son to a stylist, preferably a female one. I know you're fundamentally a good mother, Bella; a bad one wouldn't bother to ask for help. One of the main causes of my emotional stagnation when i was his age was, i didn't know how to look normal. Many teenagers are self-conscious about their appearance (or even ashamed of it; i know i was). This causes them to withdraw and not interact with peers. I think it also draws negative responses from peers, too. Other young people sense their self-consciousness and they read it as either weakness or hostility. I'm sick of adults who say, "just have confidence, and people will like you." Pure myth and nonsense. Confidence can't be manufactured out of nothing. If you get him a few sessions with a professional stylist who can guide him into dressing and grooming himself in a way that's appropriate for him, then he'll know that he looks normal. Dancing lessons or tennis lessons wouldn't hurt, either. Your son needs to have a REASON to be confident; then the confidence (and the social life) will follow.

Yesterday my wife experienced this problem; exactly this scenario. She saw one of her pupils kicking another boy. She got in his face and told him "NO!!" and, when he ignored her and resumed attacking the other boy (because that's what bullies do), she pulled him away. The special education coordinator (who is NOT a teacher, just a bureaucrat on the premises who lectures the teachers on how they should let aggressive children do whatever they want) reported my wife TO THE POLICE. The cops questioned her and everything, and she is now suspended (albeit with pay) from her job. This is what i was talking about; this is what i saw in school and have read in countless articles: adults who treat the bully as if he were the victim, and punish anyone who tries to give the bully what he deserves. No rigorous psychological study has ever confirmed that bullies are victims with low self-esteem. The rigorous studies have all concluded that (what a surprise!) it is the VICTIMS of bullying who have the low self-esteem. The idea that bullies somehow deserve compassion and sympathy is a myth. It's a lie fabricated by shallow middle-class writers and academics who hate authority and love "bad boys."

Well hello all: it's me, TO4T checking in again. I just turned 60 last week. (So maybe i should change my avatar to "MUCH Too Old 4 This"?) Honestly i can't say that i've experienced much improvement in my self-image. Over the 5 or so years that i've been posting in this chat, i've been doing a number of activities to try and make myself feel better: i've traveled to a number of foreign countries with my wife, i bought my wife some expensive gifts, i've marched in several protest demonstrations against -- well, i'm American, so you can guess whom we were protesting against, i worked for a political campaign, i have been drawing political cartoons against [same person, and his supporters], and i'm helping to organize an alternative church (one where, hopefully, Franklin Graham and Pat Robertson would feel very uncomfortable). But looking over the 50 years since the bullying started, i can't really say that the hurt went away. Maybe it does for most people; it didn't for me. What happened, mostly, was i looked for distractions (like drawing or travel) and focused on the distractions as much as possible. I don't know, i've stopped trying to look at the world the same way happy people do. I've noticed that most of them had advantages or privileges that i never had, so it's relatively easy for them to see the sunshine. But me -- i can't live their life; i have to live my own. I smile at people whenever i can, speak compliments and encouragement to my co-workers, kiss my wife for no reason at all, tell my friends how grateful i am to have them in my life, and try to remember as many good experiences as i've been lucky to have had. I'm not a dreamer, i'm a liver. I look down at the concrete under my feet and try to find something interesting there; because that's reality. Hope you all are finding some way of moving up. But even if you aren't, keep posting; and we'll all be sad together when we need it.

Hello everyone, It's been awhile since i've posted; but i haven't gone anywhere. I've spent the last year just trying to overcome the inferiority feelings that i've detailed in other posts. I've marched in a number of political protests to overcome my despair over the last election (hint: i'm in the USA), i wrote long and heavily-illustrated letters to my Senators and other political leaders (because a picture's worth a thousand words), and i'm running a Slide Show of pictures from my last two trips abroad scrolling on the Desktop of my work computer, to make me thankful for the chance to travel. I'm hoping that, by physically practicing thankfulness, that i won't spend so much time remembering everything that was humiliating and pathetic during my youth. How's everyone else doing?

I did something foolish yesterday — i looked at an ex-girlfriend’s Facebook profile. This is somebody i broke up with 28 years ago; you’d think there wouldn’t be any pain anymore. But there it was: i saw her picture, i remembered her face, i remembered the tears that i saw in her eyes back then. Tears that i caused. I did that. I broke up with her, I made her sad, I caused her pain. I want so much to reach back into the past, back to 1989, and erase that pain from her life. I don’t know; of course it’s possible that time has already erased her pain, possible that she’s been really happy from 1990 on. But when i thought of her sadness and hurt feelings, it still hurt me. So how do i know she doesn’t still hurt, too? This is what i was thinking. Sorry, everybody. I’m whining. This isn’t anything that’s going to help anyone with their issues. But i had this really intense sorrow when i saw her picture, so i wanted to unload this.

I need a vacation; that will soothe me. I'm going to Cuba.

Hope you find a way forward, PrettyLou. Just because your career and relationship aren't finished yet, that doesn't make you a failure. Plenty of people are in your situation when they're your age; i remember i certainly was. It looks very hopeless, i know; but it's not. Keep doing good work at the jobs you have, and try to find options for further education. I don't know what country you're in, but if you're in the USA or Canada (as it sounds), there are community colleges that can give you very useful (and inexpensive) career education. PrettyLou, there's a company somewhere out there who needs you. Not somebody like you; you. There's a young man somewhere out there who yearns for a girlfriend, and you're perfect for him. Don't lose hope. You'll make it to your destination one day at a time. Keep going to work and meeting people. You're perfect for someone.

Finally, some comfort. Yesterday i marched in the local March for Women's and Human Rights. I don't feel like a victim of the Trump Movement anymore. Now i feel like a member of a resistance movement.

Hello, Miracle. Hope you find comfort here. I think i agree with Jazz's proposition that some of human suffering is in fact a reasonable, natural response to awful circumstances. Poverty is poverty; not just a "bad attitude." That said, i do think that choices matter: our negative circumstances can make us think that life is ENTIRELY predetermined, and that there's no point in looking for a way out. We become passive and we stop watching for opportunities. That's a trap. Hope you remain watchful, Miracle. I wouldn't want you to miss that doorway to a better future.

My wife and i once rented a cabin near a lake in the Georgia mountains. On one night i got up to use the bathroom and, when i was done washing my hands, i turned out the light. Because of the cabin's isolation, i was plunged into total darkness. As in Small's narrative, there literally wasn't even enough light for me to see my own hand in front of my face. And it was... thrilling. I was astonished by the beauty of the experience. The world around me became instantly electric, alive with sound and smell and touch. My hearing and my tactile sense, neglected for so long while my eyes had ruled the world, suddenly had the chance to show me what they could do. I felt my way through the doorway and felt the grain of the natural timber doorframe. I heard birds and cicadas murmuring outside. I smelled the blanket where my wife was sleeping. I had lost one sense but somehow gained my other four. I no longer feel bad for blind people. Yes, they have trouble getting around, but that's our fault, the sighted people. We built streets and buildings for ourselves, and that's what made our world difficult for them. But i experienced their world for just a few minutes: it's a rich and sensuous place.

Happy holidays, Tina. I don't know how you celebrate in Slovakia, but i hope there is joy for you with your family or with friends your age.

Way to go, Pax. You did some ass-whooping of your own. Remember the Chinese proverb: "a journey of a thousand miles [or li; they don't have miles in Asia.] begins with a single step." You successfully did Step 1. You can do Step 2 too.

Wishing you the best, Pax Keep trying, don't give up. I relate to the sense of hopelessness that comes from repeated failure. I finished law school in 1985, and began a long series of failures that lasted through 2008. That's 23 years, if you're doing the math. But stay strong and keep pushing forward. Eventually you'll show them.