Changing how I view life, when faced with death.

Just to get some details out of the way, so you can follow along with my logic…

I lived a very traumatic life. I was molested multiple times, by different people. I spent the vast majority of my life trying to escape reality, from reading to video games to athletics, anything to distract me from the emotional injuries that I had endured. Due to my circumstances, I was socially and emotionally stunted, a decade or more behind most others my biological age. I couldn’t grasp why the world around me was so unfair.

At one point, I couldn’t endure reality any longer and became psychotic, the trigger was being dumped by my girlfriend of eight years (the only romantic relationship in my life). My breakdown was merely the cumulation of my perception being out of alignment with reality though, my frustration/disappointment/anger/resentment/etc… finally boiling over. The results of my psychosis was a complete withdrawl into fantasy. I felt as if I was superior or advanced; that others were too stupid, conditioned and/or indoctrinated to see that my ideals were “right”. I spent the past eight years living in this delusion.

I was always intelligent, but not so much wise. I tried to rationalize the world around me and follow ideals that I was attracted to, generally it was the polar opposite of how I was treated in life. I couldn’t understand why the world didn’t live up to my ideals and expectations, this disconnect fractured my mind. I looked at others as weak and/or stupid. I lost any semblance of fulfillment or happiness, I was utterly miserable and just going through the motions of a reality that I hated.

Within the past month or so, I began noticing signs of failing health and it forced me to reflect on my life. I was trying to validate my perceptions, in hopes to validate my existence. When facing my demise, I couldn’t delude myself any longer. I looked back with honesty for the first time I can remember and came to a few conclusions.

The first of these, was that I had been living a lie. My perspective was warped by all the traumas I had endured, I was a marrionette, being strung about by cause and effect. My experiences controlled my actions and I created a fantasy in order to delude myself from it. I was being controlled by my emotions, which stemmed from my inability to accept the world around me, because it didn’t align with my own views. Initially, I wanted to deny this, but once I looked objectively the evidence was unmistakenably clear in my memories.I could see how events shaped my views and dictated my responses. I saw my fight or flight manifest, over and over again. The former took the form of withdrawl and the latter took the form of irrational rage when I was forced to deal with reality. Eventually, I discovered that I hadn’t lived life at all and I didn’t desire to spend what time I had left continuing to be a “zombie”. This epiphany force me to change my paradigm. I now view the world as something beyond my control, to be accepted for what it is and what it isn’t. Almost immediately, I felt all of my emotional baggage melt away. I was no longer disappointed or resentful or frustrated, I was actually at peace for the first time ever.

Secondly, I noticed how I afraid I had been. I was petrified of not living up to expectations (be them my own, others or Society’s). I feared being myself… due to judgment, ridicule and stigmatism. I was guarded and closed off, unwilling and unable to be open and honest with others. Personality-wise, I’m very open and honest, so I was constantly battling internally. I wanted to say so much to people over the years, but the grip of fear prevented me from doing so. I have since began to open up and be honest with those around me. I called all my siblings and told them how I felt. I started to write an autobiography and shared it with a co-worker that I trust, as well as annonymously. As I become more and more open, I feel happier and happier. I’m finally being true to myself.

Finally, I was confronted with my insecurities and inadequacies. I had been conditioned to believe that we must strive for success to feel content and/or fulfillment. I have never cared about such things, but I always felt like I had to be better than others in some capacity. I always sought to validate myself through besting others and when I couldn’t, the doubt crept in. I’ve accomplished many things in life… I was more concerned with my achievements than who I actually was as a person… they defined me. I would invalidate others who didn’t have the same experience or knowledge, using it as a way to feel better about myself. I’ve learned that I have purpose in the world, besides accomplishments. I have always been drawn to helping others and mentoring, even during my darkest times, I excelled at it and impacted many people. I have worked with emotionally and behaviorally disabled teens for the past five years, but it wasn’t until I had this change in my views that work didn’t feel like a grind and I actually look forward to each day. I understand that I will never amount to much, according to Society’s standards of success, but I’m fine with that… I have purpose and that fulfills me.

I’m by no means completely where I desire to be, but I’m far more conscious of myself these days. I still battle with my instincts, conditionings and indoctrinations on a daily basis; but I’m aware of them now, giving me the control to actually make my own decisions… our options might be limited, but my actions are no longer controlled by things that happened to me twenty or more years ago.

That is an excellent story. And it tells of a very common situation that very, very men and boys are in who very seldom see their way out of. And the inspiration to actually “see yourself” is what allows such a revelation to work. Most boys and men have no incentive to take a good look at themselves, no means of measure, and thus never see how much they exactly fit what you just described. So congrates that you managed to beat the odds.

Most men who manage to get over their childhood instilled insecurities instantly become “assholes” as they gain the courage to speak out against what they used to mindlessly fear. It takes a little while for them to adjust to the experience of having courage and during that time, they are quite often unpleasant and very willing to presume a great deal of hatred for their imagined oppressors. When handled professionally, it usually only takes a week or two for them to gain their new personality that is far more mature and far closer to what their male genes would have produced if they had been left to do their job.

I was glad to see that you didn’t do as is most common by blaming those “mean, nasty, evil, deluded Christians”. The fact is that the Christians were merely stalling others from having that effect upon the population much sooner. It would be wise to not get into the blame-game and get on with figuring out the peak of wise behavior now that you got out from behind the starting gate.

But please don’t think that the story is over. :sunglasses:

I agree with you, life is never completed, if it’s not an upward seeking desire to successfully resolve into the new paradigm,then it is a cyclical, ever returning abating, or return with a vengeance. It is hopefully a process where with repeated trials , more bearing may be brought upon it, resulting in more assurance and less panick and fear.

If you have to ask about a “meaning of life”, you’re already on the wrong track.

I was definitely an “asshole” for a number of years. Long story short, I had at one point gotten to a good place in life, around the age of 21. Things had began to really go my way when I joined the Military. I had purpose and felt like I had overcome my childhood issues. I also had become quite appealing to others, making acquaintances easily and getting a lot of attention from women, I was like a manchild (socially and emotionally like a typical gradeschooler without major traumas)… full of an innocent zest for life, open and idealistic. Working with children at times, I can understand the appeal of it, you can’t help but smile when they act without cynicism or judgment.

I, enevitably, misplaced my trust in someone. When they hurt me, it destroyed my innocence and zest for life. I slowly became cynical and bitter over the next few years, but still stubbornly held out hope in my ideals. As I became more cynical and bitter, I became more and more of an asshole to others. Blaming others for not living up to my ideals. Eventually, my descent into darkness, out-weighed the positive (mostly memories by this point) and my ex couldn’t deal with it any longer… so she dumped me. Looking back, I see it objectively, but at the time I just wanted to watch the world burn. I felt as if I had carried the burden of her injuries to me for so long, that when I couldn’t any longer and sought support from her, she abandoned me in my greatest time of need. I deserved it though, I had become a huge asshole, entitled and bitter; not even a shell of the person she first met. Now I can try to justify my responses based on the traumas she inflicted on me, but that was my old paradigm, where I couldn’t accept reality for what it is. I deeply regret my actions following the break-up (because it wasn’t in alignment with my true self), I was psychotic and extraordinarily cruel. I tried to reach out to her and apologize for my actions from about a decade ago, but she refuses to even acknowledge me (which I can fully understand and respect). My intention isn’t ulterior either, I just wanted to be open and honest with myself… acknowledging my past grievances against others, especially those I care for (or did at one point) and attempt to help them heal the wounds that I inflicted. I do this not out of obligation or wanting to change people’s perspective of me, but because of my beliefs in being true to myself… being open and honest, not wanting to propagate the same injuries that I have experienced (since the damage has already been done in this case, I just want to take responsibility for it)… maybe it will help, maybe it’ll make things worse, but at least I’m doing what I feel is right (minus the conditionings, indoctrinations and instincts) for the first time in a long time.

I did much the same with my family and friends, opening up to them about many things I was either too afraid and/or ashamed to say in the past. Leave no doubt, I was an asshole for a long time… not because I embraced such a disposition, but because I was controlled by so much baggage that I couldn’t even see it for what it was.

I was molested too, it stunted me, it changed my nature a little bit. Now I have intimacy issues and irrational fears, slightly paranoid and have general anxiety. Yeah, it messed me up good!

I didn’t go into much detail, as the point of my post wasn’t really about my childhood, but for some further elaboration…

My father died when I was fairly young, I was not even old enough to have developed more than a memory or two of him. My mother was physically and mentally abusive, she beat me on numerous occasions and used to threaten to kill herself at times (being a small child with little understanding of the world, this used to wreck havoc on me emotionally and mentally). My siblings were dealing with their own issues, but as the youngest, I got the brunt of their anger (at least until they became adults). I grew up in poverty and was a social outcast among my peers, my home life was beyond chaotic… living in filth and having zero structure, the inmates ran the asylum, as the old saying goes. Much of my childhood was spent escaping in my own imagination. I felt like no one cared about me, like I was alone in the world.

To illustrate one such abuse, my mother punched me in the face, because her boyfriend was disparaging me and I could hear it through the wall… I finally snapped. I put my hand through the wall and called the guy out in a rage. Being 6’2" and 260lbs at 15 and my mother’s boyfriend being a 5’6" mexican guy, he cowered under my imposing viseage of size and fury… running back inside the room, behind my mother, who then punched me in the mouth. The damage inflicted by the punch was almost comical to the damage the action inflicted to my psyche. This is one of a multitude of instances where my siblings and I, always took a backseat to my mother and her needs. Trust me when I say that of all the things I’ve gone through, the molestations were the easiest to come to terms with (for me anyways).

Mine was sexual, went on for years in my childhood, my mind blocked it out i guess through out my teens, never thought about it, it never bothered me, until i reached around 18 and it just came through and it was naturally brought to my conscious mind where i remembered what happened, i guess it was lurking within me the whole time. I never really recovered, it killed me. I’m a dead person, a monster of sorts.

None of my molestations were violent and I was fairly young, so maybe that’s why they didn’t affect me so drastically. At around 4 years old, the teenaged son of my mother’s boyfriend at the time, placed his penis on my crotch and humped me. I was too young to really understand what was happening and there was no penetration, but as I got older, the experience didn’t sit well with me for many reasons. The second molestation was when I was about 5 years old, a friend of my teenaged sister, took me into the bathroom and had me lick icecream off of her breasts and vagina… I see my sister being involved in this encounter, but I was so young that I cannot really tell if it happened or it was merely a projection due to cross-contaminated memories… I can somewhat see my sister in the memory, either being present or being part of the action. During the third molestation, I was either 6 or 7 years old. I was at my aunt’s house, hanging out in my teenaged cousin’s bedroom. I was playing his electronic handheld football game, like I usually did. My cousin manipulated me with a tit for tat approach. He put my penis in his mouth and then convinced me to do the same to him. I remember trying to refuse, because the salty flavor of his penis wasn’t pleasing to me, but he then forced me to continue… using his hands to drive my head down. The worst part of the encounter, is that my older brother witnessed it. Which he used as a way to inflict mental/emotional pain on me as a teenager.

At the end of the day, it definitely damaged me, but not as much as some of my other experiences.

Have you thought about making a bucket list and what you would do if confronted with a shortened lifespan?

While I’ve pondered all manner of things in my life, at this time, I don’t really have a desire to do anything but continue on my journey of being open and honest with myself. If you would like, I guess that you could call me telling those in my life how I really feel, as being a type of bucket list… although, I have no desire to partake in activities or visit locations… I’ve led a pretty interesting life, been a lot of places and done a lot of things. Ultimately, I have mostly been interested in matters of the mind and that is where I prefer to spend my time.

I have never been officially tested, but based on antecdotal evidence, I’d place my IQ at somewhere around 130+. While I can understand people and their motivations very astutely, I can honestly say that I’ve never really related to anyone. If I had to describe it, the feeling is akin to what a person of slightly above average IQ feels when interacting with stereotypical tropes of ignorant populations. For instance, a middle-classed person with a decent education might understand a poverty stricken, beer drinking redneck; but they simply cannot relate to the lifestyle “choices”. I routinely find myself as the smartest person in the room and I dropped out of school in the 9th grade… by “smart”, I’m not referring to knowledge as much as I am referring to critical thinking and problem-solving ability. While I have educated myself in a wide variety of subjects, my knowledge is by no means fully comprehensive on any of them. Anyways, to the point of all this background information, I just see the world differently than most others I’ve encountered. I’m keenly aware of everything around me and would love for the ability to simply be ignorant from time to time. It’s so bad in-fact, that I find myself finishing people’s thoughts for them in conversations, so either I’m an asshole due to impatience or I’m utterly bored waiting for people to say what I already know they’re going to say. This makes it very difficult to enjoy conversation, so I typically just get lost in my own thoughts.

That said, I’m no savant in areas of usefulness… you won’t catch me solving math equations that stump the brightest Mathematicians or devising groundbreaking scientific theories (like renowned geniuses). I may learn more quickly than most other people, but I possess no unusual insights in such fields, I’m simply not passionate about them. My ex went to an ivy-league school and studied neuroscience, yet I could answer questions on her tests without having every picked up the textbook or having attained more than a GED educationwise… so if there’s any area that I’m gifted in some manner, it’s probably the fields of Psychology and Philosophy. I’ve never studied any of these in a formal setting, but my insights tend to either impress or infuriate others. To illustrate, I had never read the works on Socrates before, but more than a few people mentioned similarities in the observations that I made. And yes, I know what most are thinking when reading that previous statement… that unfortunately is your problem… based on your conditionings, indoctrinations, perspectives, perceptions and biases. After reading the works based on him, I did notice similarities, such as trying to manipulate others into seeing things that they didn’t want to see (usually resulting in the same angry responses). It wasn’t until recently that I noticed the bitterness and frustration that led to such a mindset. Attempting to control others to make them see my views, because I was intellectually lonely and disenfranchised with my perception of reality.

I’m sure that I’m leaving out vital information from A to B, as I tend to take certain concepts for granted and assume others are on the same page. Regardless, hope that helps you understand a little more about me, if you have specific questions I’ll do my best to respond.

Thinking, postulating, calculating, analyzing, organizing, and scheming are all great things but sometimes you just got to drop everything throwing all caution in the air by just living in the moment where everyday life becomes a pleasurable sometimes damning adventure. Sometimes you have to cut lose the constraints, pretensions, doubts, routines, and everything else to live life to the fullest.

Here comes my story. I was brought up with a silver spoon and a very tarnished one at that. My father was an alcoholic has been, was abusive and detrimental mom, who had to take it in stride. He was totally manipulative and completely control. He loved on his own terms and he dismissed his family mattee of factly. So he raped me early on by setting me up for the classy life but substantially disengaging from guidance how to get there.

The break came in pre adolescence, when he saw he couldn’t hide his own homosexuality any longer from a precocous son.

Thereafter i became estranged from him literally and otherwise, moved to another country with my mom, who slowly morphed into a bohemian which in her life meant men and painting in oil

I became a thinker thereafter, reclusive and meased up, which i sustained until the present day
Religion meant a lot toe all my life,until fairly recently , and even though church has become a mwre formality, God doea mean a sense of absolute energy,the saving grace of which sustains the soul.

Right now i am siding with the metaphysical philosophers who support a foundation into the mystical and metaphysical realms of humam existence

Unfortunately, that isn’t in my nature. I cannot simply turn my brain off, it goes at all times, even when I wish it wouldn’t. At best, I can hyper-focus on certain things, giving me somewhat of a break from pondering everything. When I’m sufficiently motivated, my mind becomes obsessive, thinking of nothing but performing the task in front of me… I get easily distracted by my thoughts though, once I loose my focus, my mind begins to wander as I contemplate anything and everything again. This hyper-focus allows me to excel at most things I attempt, but I’m not a self-motivated type, because I cannot relate to the world around me. I tend to start something and eventually I look around and realize that I’m alone in my passion/focus, which makes me feel like the endeavor is pointless, so my interest quickly fades as I loose purpose for the result. It’s due to this that I cannot relate to others.

People are so consumed with other things that they sleepwalk through existence, unable and/or unwilling to look deeply or passionately at the world around them. I’ve met some who possess some of this or some of that, but it’s never to an equal extent as me. Don’t get me wrong either; I have friends and do fine socially, but I feel alone, even around many people. I’ve never felt understood or related to, beyond the superficial stuff. One cannot live life to the fullest, if they cannot be themselves to the fullest… thus my conundrum. Therefore, I just internalize my thoughts most of the time as that’s the closest I can get to fulfillment.

I’ve considered religion, but at the end of the day, it goes against the concept of aligning my beliefs to better coincide with reality. To me, religion is just another fantasy that we create to better suit our perspectives… the only real difference is that religion is structured and delusion is not.

That is not entirely the way it works. Don’t call in the jury just yet.

I never come to an inflexible stance, when it relates to knowledge. I’m not atheist, I’m simply agnostic… I have yet to see strong enough evidence to believe in a God, but I’m not arrogant enough to believe that there’s no possibility of it.

Currently though, without evidence, I must stay grounded in what I can observe. Therefore, I see religion as an illusion. To be perfectly honest, I respect most moderate religious people, they typically possess set of values and morality that I prefer. Zealotry on the other hand, I do not respect, as I find these types wanting to control reality; trying to shape it to suit their views.

My oldest brother is very religious and I see many of the same issues in him that I saw in myself. The frustration, the disappointment, the resentment, etc… he wants the world to match his ideology, but it simply doesn’t. I have witnessed many things that display just how powerful the mind is, especially in the realm of perception. It’s not a far stretch to apply such principles to religious beliefs. People delude themselves all the time, why should I differenciate such phenomenia into “crazy” and “religion”? To me, it’s the same observable root cause, the mind shaping perspective… the goal/purpose, is mostly irrelevant.

That said, I’m open to the possibility, but I require further evidence… everything I’ve experienced thus far, points to a negative result.

Again, that is a very sane and rational position to take.

What you seem to be missing is anyone to teach you, in rational terms, what all of that religious babbling was really about. Instead, you have the ramblings of a very large, not-entirely-sane populous with ulterior motives underpinning just about everything they say.

You are one of those few with whom others would benefit by being totally honest rather than attempting to manipulate, even “for your own good”. Unfortunately, you, like your entire generation, was born “behind enemy lines” and thus have no higher mentor to show you the ropes nor anyone with whom to gain an honest perspective of what it all actually meant (the words never meant what you think they meant). You are not supposed to accept any old religion so as to prepare for the new religion (“Human Secularism”).

I’ve listened to different people, with different perspectives. My brother had an experience with God, but he was also very fucked up emotionally and doing large quantities of psychedelics at the time. He cannot rationally explain it though, he’s tired numerous times, but it always leads to the same place… which is basically, I know what I experienced and you can’t possibly seem to understand it. This is typically my experiences with people of faith, be them Christians or Atheists. When you put all your eggs in one basket, you become defiant to anything that goes against your beliefs. I was there once too, but it wasn’t on the topic of religion… it was regarding morality and values.

All beliefs require faith and all opinions are beliefs, I don’t view the world in these terms any more. I obviously still have preferences, but I no longer feel the need to validate my views to others. I accept things as I observe them; looking past my own conditionings, indoctrinations, instincts and ego. I attempt to put myself in other people’s shoes to understand how they’ve come to their conclusions. I don’t feel the need to judge others any longer, because it’s self-destructive in my eyes. The world doesn’t have to make sense to me any more and I sure and the hell won’t compromise who I am any longer, to accomplish such a thing.

You haven’t listened to everyone.