I CANNOT BELIEVE HOW PATHETIC I HAD BEEN... Here beyond any theory - THE NOTES OF ROUGH RECOLLECTIONS THAT I ONCE IMAGINED I WOULD LIKE ONLY TO KEEP FOLDED ON THE INTERVENTIONIST'S TABLE - and then follow wherever the meeting would help take us in our separate lives with others now -
These further details in themselves may mean nothing, but importantly do help, I think, in pointing out the more immediate hurt and confusion that predominated. It may just all seem like not much more than an annoyingly needless variation of the confusion most people would grow from over time. It really is just my take, perhaps here for the other party involved to take to seek further advice if he ever gets so lost as we were before. Elsewhere even moreso, I hope I make it inherently clear that maybe I had formidible problems all down to no one else but me. I did grow up being able to put much aside and just get on with my life. Then in front of me was someone who said those methods just did not work - and he was apparently succeeding while what I did kept showing how wrong I was. I slowly felt that I had to let go of how I thought things could be done. This means, I guess, I failed in realizing what really applies to my circumstances. I replaced the habit of just cutting my losses, with ruminating with, and about, shortfalls in my emotional capacity. Of course now I see that cutting my losses was exactly what I should have done much earlier. But I knew how I felt when others don't give me any chances, what if I was now being as intolerant? I just kept thinking there was too much invested and felt too much was almost so very nearly within my reach to let go of it. I HAVE WRITTEN THESE NOTES ONLY TO SERVE AS INDICATING THE MORE IMMEDIATE PAIN AND DISORIENTATION My intention to go back in time is an attempt to show how things built up from events first thought isolated and, thus, pretty easily dismissed as just what happens in life that absolutely just needs getting over. I first developed an emptiness in lost intervening years which always brought me back to when I was really starting out in life at 22 years old - First, I'll mention a ticket to spend a weekend away with him. This was cancelled because his child was sick, I admired that his child came first. I was disappointed because of very private issues it compelled me to embarrassingly discuss with Mum & Dad back then while organizing the trip. All my life, I believed I had some grasp on realising how hard it must be to bring up a disabled daughter, wanting her to be safe, and yet trying the best to let her experience life. Never in my wildest dreams could I have envisaged such a communication breakdown between my mother and myself, and it was the worst for me to have my efforts to manage my own life interpreted as a malicious slight against my parents. But it was just that - compounded misunderstandings, confusion, and what struck me then as a suprisingly different way of looking at the world - more different from what I thought I had gone to pains to consider. I deeply resented having to divulge so much to them at the time - Mum, Dad and I all slowly got over that and are now very open with ourselves in an undemanding way. It did take many agonizingly long years to reach such a point though, rebuilding on unexpectedly lost lifelong trust. Of course a casual relationship wasn't worth all this hassle. Secondly, there was a sudden reduction in time with him than planned in my original home town where he was living. I also went to see my family. This was not long after the earlier ticket cancellation, and a week after I endured my capping ceremony. I needed a friend. The apparent trivial nature of these first two events remained pivotal in my mind for years - and that ashames me.
[ ~ ~ Again, these listed details clearly do not mean a thing in themselves, and make more sense against the level of functional independence I was after over the duration involved, as well as the background processes possibly occurring. I think I must have been fairly worn down to have allowed this all get to me so unproprtionately. I wouldn't like others to have to be subject to similar kinds of processes with these continually going unrecognized. The degree of disillusionment and dispair at the time, I believed needed to be thoroughly realised and worked through, even if matters at the surface were so trivial. The ways I had these events once integrated together for myself in my own mind, with background understandings, fell apart in a way that was too drastic. A letter arrived out-of-the-blue from him saying he had found a fresh new direction living in another city, and he was keen to get me to come and see it all. He said he was under too much stress where he was before. It was also where a research team I got on well with from my own dept had just set up. I remember rushing off to a party later on that night, completely rapt at how my study was shaping up, how people and the university were coming though for me, and especially that the faith I had kept putting into a particular person was starting to ring true. I have had an extremely hard time trying to forgive myself for all of what I just kept allowing to happen. It feels good to have how I have seen things all written down and out of the way. I had deleted a whole lot from my computer to try and get rid of all the memories, and what it seems like only I have experienced. How could I get through now to others about how much more I think I'm capable of? It has been a worry as to how I may seem so weak and frail. It is not primarily due to the outside society, as some may think, although I know I have missed out now so much on building even more upon ways I used to handle that. I am putting my own self forward here, and I want any cost of this to myself or anyone to be mitigated by offering an understanding for all in what has been on the way to a possibly deeper fulfilment in viewing life compassionately. My feelings have all changed since, but I outline this now for anyone to work with as just an added ancillary piece of events that lead to other things I've said. The understanding we seemed to share in between the hurt was what I came to live for. I do see now how emotionally immature, unquestionably naive and inexperienced I was, tempered with a lot of young idealism. So - I lost out on a relationship that never really was. But I had also lost trust in my life and everything in it very very slowly in a way neither of us could notice. Had I no right in merely thinking that I could one day be what most people could afford to take a chance at? I don't write much here of the listless shellshock that kept continuing afterwards at the drop of his name, in media, papers, places, memories. I stayed away from people we've known mutually, who I wanted to get to know much more in their own right. I was scared of my own anger, fear and love. I was scared of collapsing in a crying heap. Scared of how I may say unqualified things against a man who really meant so much to me. Inevitable misunderstandings in any relationship are just left to grow out of any sense of proportion without trust being put into working these through. The not knowing, for me, kept spreading into more of life too slowly to realise it's fuller impact over time. I was too weak to see beyond the ever-quickening spiralling 'if onlys'. Every squirmish in that state becomes huge and it takes time to see that the if-onlys would just keep coming with absolutely no end. I kept giving more chances, as I have always needed so many before others could understand me too. Sometimes I felt very lonely as a child, no matter how many people were around. I guess I always hoped this would improve by developing where I could, and by just accepting the rest. Click the link above to read offered speculations that other manifestations spill into broader contexts. Please note that apportioning blame will never help nor allow arrival at effective long term healing. I found that understanding what tends towards a common value system should not be a reason to sanction a following of it necessarily. When organizations purposely propose what I should be valuing to the extent that nothing else in this world matters more or even equally, I've seen matters not in their realm slowly even cease to exist. Attempts to teach me to align my self-esteem with whatever becomes societally validated, condoning the actions of individuals who seem to answer every criteria favourably, crushes other worlds and other realities which could otherwise still embrace common concerns and be open to a whole lot more. It was through following the understanding of what becomes unheard, that my life eventually taught me that simply widening the scope that specifies what is to be valued, just allows a shifting of the same form to continue what essentially has been. Many trying to represent me, would impatiently say that I have had no experiences, and that I just don't seem to realize or care about what others go through, everyday, all their lives. I have always been mindful of how I can help, and what I can add, in keeping with all else in my life. In practice, I'm open to using all kinds of the same or different implementation services and initiatives set up for people like me, very appreciatively, but this doesn't then all go into supporting some standardized tune. Any tune can rather be of a type that no one subsequently should be shotdown for interpreting, modifying, criticizing and appropriating in their own ways of growing and offering encouragement to others... I have been taught now beyond all words the value of nurturing sustainably the capacity for feeling, in ourselves, and then in others as much as we can. I set out learning again - somehow still trying to find a way to live without too many affronts and tendencies towards glittering outcomes. I think it's when the pain can be embraced as we can embrace other things in a fuller life, that perspective finally lets a whole lot more in. I rang after exams, only to find he was seeing someone else, but he asked me to still come as a friend. Then he cancelled due to landlady and cousin. Had always said he didn't know what he wanted, couldn't commit, married yet someone else, then went on national television saying he's always wanted a wife his whole life. He was outspoken on how crips never have dreams, never listened to, never taken seriously. Over years of not having contact, I went through stages struggling with accepting all of this, knowing him as I thought I was starting to. I had absolutely no concept at all of how much a loneliness in my life was about to take over and it really did throttle the life out of me, and had me feeling utterly ridiculous. I was forever wondering how the closeness I thought we approached sometimes, did not seem to factor with him at all. It wasn't all just a casual fling, and he had admitted since to always wanting someone after all. I felt like I could always tell that, and this added to me wondering over chances I would have given anything to have. Years afterwards, he did explain how he always had feelings for me, wondered how things between us could work, and cherished the times we spent together immensely. The goalposts were always shifting. I did see after a while that it had been futile to work at jumping through hoops and at going for broke. Naively, my heart maintained against my more reasoned thought that if I could have had a little mutual investment back in a direction openly discussed so that it would have suited us both, I feel I would have listened and put more energy into a life that could have worked. A very poor misunderstanding somewhere was the only explanation, and was one that I had wanted to figure out better. I needed to learn from what I thought I could handle, but evidently could not. Years went by. Up until then, indeed, this turmoil could have been put down to my youth. I tried to dismiss a niggling that it wasn't all just my inexperience. I considered that it really was very arrogant of me to not just pass it off as being young, and so stupidly romantic. I wanted myself to realise in the fullest extent possible, as to how stupidly pathetic and carried away I could become. I think I learned later, that chances he perceived himself as always giving, stand as pretty sad testimony to what was being experienced by us both. 28 years old - He told me he put me forward for the New Zealand Disablity Strategy job, others have said the same - that they did. When working on the NZDS, I tried to relax by making some conversations markedly light & breezy with him, and I think these were childish, but he was always like that and seemed bored with anything of complexity. He was stressed and I guess needed a break when he could get one. I mentioned something about needing sensitivity then about working together because of past, he went into a tirade about how he was never insensitive toward me in the year we met. I tried to put him at ease one day about our past, calling him Mr Independent Dick after he just had been saying how good it was to have me cracking him up like I used to and how no one else could do it quite like I did. I got told off bitterly about doing something constructive with my anger as he did and made a career from it. At that time, I was also just trying to chat about an article I had been using on the takahe. I remember that day very clearly at how sunny it started, happy to have friends and a lifted depression. I guess I mucked up. On another day he told me off for apparently not being able to understand how crips need to make mistakes and have encouragement to try again. Wrote this with much contempt at me. I was floored at how I thought was doing exactly that over the years for him. Tentatively, I think I developed exaggerated hyperstartle responses, diminished concentration and an unreliable short-term memory - a hangover from many variables beyond anything here, and all down to me. I appreciated him saying then that I should relax since we had gotten to know each other more, and don't need to preface things I say in case I might cause offense. Another time after that, my intention was a backhanded compliment in once jokingly saying that it's good he doesn't have to deal with the public so much in administration. He replied something blistery along the lines about how dare I question his expertise. I was a bit stunned by this, he sounded wounded as well as inflamed. Maybe I am really offbeam in how I put anything. He was working through his divorce, we kept in touch through email. He wrote of some heedy stuff, and I did too. After a winter, we were finally going to spend a Sunday together again. I was thrilled that he asked to see me. He never arrived, never rang. I had Mum & Dad waiting to see if they should go out for lunch as they had planned, and I didn't want to show my disappointment. I casually asked later what happened. He said he didn't have my number (we're in the book) and his flatmate was going to make curtains for his van which meant he could more easily see his child at his child's mother's by sleeping outside. Fair enough, I thought. But then he signed off saying, "You know me, I never let a chance go by". I sadly thought of how I used to be that way too. He also said "I don't care what you think" at some stage during that exchange, when I asked if he was going ok. I seem to remember this was about something else. I first thought he sounded pretty hurt in how he put it, but then scolded myself for assuming too much. He had always said constantly that he had never wanted me to feel used, or to hurt me. He said he would always be there for me. I was always looking forward to what we could have with the time there was to share. As I've mentioned before, I'm sorry for this sounding so idiotic to write about, but I think that attests to the whole nature of what I got so caught up in. This man assured me that he knew and understood so many of the issues I was going through then, because of his own life and nationally recognized work. He did. I initially thought he too had a family like mine - one with those that liked to keep everyone's head on the ground, and one with many who also slung off with endless laughter at anything too pretentious. Notwithstanding how enriching that can be, he was nonetheless extremely perceptive in honing in on the problems that a young disabled adult may be facing, and is adamant that such people can be more independent. I, however, think that under these terms, I ended up such a disgrace. In perspective with what had developed, lifelong strivings were just silly to me now. I really could see other ways to go about things, these were actually what made me feel more competent and mature to take on life then, and still take it in now, after a period of losing that sensibility entirely. I was drastically unaware though, just as he was, of what depth just could not be assumed. I kept what I really believed just dimly, and continued relating in an easier mode. He once complained that my mother treated him like he was 17, as if I had no idea. It did not seem to occur to him that I had also been laughing away at her presumptions then too. Being a bit lost in feeling as sure in myself then as I used to always be, it was a tremendous nagging pain being at home for me too, but at that much later stage than when we first met, and after I had spent lost years apart in quite a daze, I really thought, "So life's tough, grow up and be the one who wants to be there for me". Today living like I do is still more a worry for me in terms of my parents' own needs, - but we all know everything will work out. It has become a joy to know them as I do now, and will be heartening to look back upon ; and I also still agree wholeheartedly in the most mundane of terms, that I have to be taking full reponsibility for myself at this age. I faintly had it in my mind that Mum had once nursed me like the helpless 23yo baby I was after a 8 day psychotic episode I had in a psych ward. Was he at my bedside like Mum and Dad were back then? No, he wasn't, but I'm not being fair, life was difficult for him too. Very. And he had to get on with it not only for his own sake. In his position, I would have cut my losses and moved on as he did indeed do, only with a bit more tact. In those years later, Mum had then been recovering successfully from cancer treatment, and still had historical grounds to be concerned about him and I. Again, so what about feeling stupid for a bit? It would have worked out in no time then, but I know that looked hard to see. I would always have put my foot down if she really started to impinge on someone who took me seriously, and I would have ensured a solid resolution of this for the long term, if I had to. I know what it's like to be belittled, but we're not kids anymore, we should be able to take it before sound changes that are due, take shape. If I had only known that the people (now deceased) who had become his child's maternal grandparents never even let him in their house from the start ... that would have provided everyone with a more understanding perspective all else being equal, I think. It's all futile, now. It seems a lot of people were acting out in fear all around, and I hope one day the child will be able to see beyond all such matters similar in kind, if there ever is the need. Many people mistakingly do believe that they are acting for the best, even are sure that their actions are a reflection of love overall, and a lot have just been very scared of what they do not know as they go about living. This is glib, but I feel an important reminder to place here if I insist on mentioning what I just have and for the sake of not allowing an outsider like myself to use my own working context to take over those of others potentially much more personally closer in ways, that I as one of the adults here, should state that I don't know about in fuller specifc regard. Often I chasten myself for putting the emotional age of the man I was involved with down at about nine. But he's been through an awful lot growing up, and done great considering. I remember independence being the whole world to me as a teenager too. At that stage with him, I felt as if I was endlessly stuck behaving as though I was 15 at a stretch. It was hard going then not knowing what my mental health difficulties really were, how hard to push, what I could safely still do. What the hell should I have listened to? Where the hell did I go so profoundly wrong? I also apologize for any temporary embarrassment this may cause to any reader in light of my candor. I did not know how else to put some of this material, and having my own accounts all written out has put my mind at rest in seeing some sense in what unfolded whilst still conveying how much more I was in dire need of learning. That I put myself in such situations was sheer outright madness, and I'd appreciate the chance to declare my awareness of how jaded I was. 32 years old - One day after heavy petting - our activity was as such because as far as I was concerned, our meetings were sadly too sporadic to organize contraceptives we could manage, and I was dying to discuss that with him properly at that stage - I noticed a thick streak of seminal fluid on my pubic hair extending down into my crotch. I think I overreacted when my next period was late. I don't really mind saying as much, and it is a way to explain how dubious my concerns were becoming - I can't see why the hell I didn't pull finger years earlier and leave the whole harrowing situation all behind me. It wasn't the first time that since I was all stressed-out and not freely able to discuss contingencies properly without risking him feeling that that was too involved, that this lead to at least medical matters for himself to deal with at very inopportune times. On the other hand - shit, I had always been grateful that we agreed to be as careful as we were being - and at times he was so patient with me. Thus, I thought it said a lot that he did stick around regardless of all that my hassles had entailed, and others didn't see that part of his nature. In this instance, my late period put me through eleven days of self-induced sheer hell. He was away heading an important public occasion - the first after one hell of a year for him, and I didn't want to confide in him until everything was cleared and after he returned. He was great about this upon his return. I thought it sounded far too far fetched to worry over like I did into a real state rifling continually through a calendar - how long did I have to make pretty urgent decisions? What kind of damned idiot was I? I felt a bloody stupid dramaqueen. But also something deep inside me emotionally had started to change for the better. My parents were amazingly thoughtful and compassionate towards me all through this. I remember how they sat silently and began cuddling me while I stared zombie-like into space from on the couch - they awakened some of my very tired heart. They actually worked out what might have been wrong themselves and talked away quite naturally about how having a grandchild certainly wouldn't be the end of the world at all, but quite the opposite. It was all a bit hard for me to get my head around. I read his partially autobiographical presentation heralding his new business. He said he always felt like a pet from a strange, foreign location - to be played with and discarded later. Before that next Christmas, he thanked me for being a good friend sticking by him through all the years after all he put me through. I also felt like I had been waiting endlessly to start working on what would be the best for us all no matter what that would turn out to be. There was finally excitement, but also more dread, hope, fear and I still had no concentration to speak of. He said that because he was doing so much rewarding work, it was the first time in his life where he was no longer running. I was just glad to know he was finding peace and happiness. I always knew what it was like for no one to listen or not look past the surface. A couple of months later, I teased him as I would any man in my family - made some stupid throwaway comment about him being alright in life, complete with having some gourgeous tall blond beside him one day. The result was some kind of uproar and lecture about himself seeing more to a person than that. When I calmed him down, he said we don't see each other enough. Our next meeting was to me then all-in-all a wonderful, beautiful day in my life - sometimes embedded now in memories so fucking painful, that I usually block it all out. I write of the final terrible exchange elsewhere as well - the black email. I remember when he first came to live in the same city as me, I once wrote that part of independence was actually about being confident and strong enough in oneself to give. In thinking more as I write today trying to attempt what really is more integrated beyond words within me and more than conscious thought - I always had in mind that the vital importance of independence was about ensuring that we can get the very best out of ourselves in order to give, and with adults, that meant only having to be around where we mutually want to be - responsibilies, practical constraints and the need for a sustainability of wellbeing notwithstanding. I know that with kids, there's no time to remain clinging at all to such obtuse theorizing. He said later in that black email that I will never live until I can care for someone, and that I could defend myself however hard I like, but my life would never mean anything because I just could not seem to function. That he would be run ragged running around cleaning up my messes. If that was really, wholly true - I reasoned later after having the words and rageful contempt of the black email racing around continually in my head for years - it seemed he had no heart shoving my nose in it while I said we couldn't continue as we had again. I accept that the break-up in itself had to be. I did not understand at that stage why an apology for the extent of what he said, after all those years of knowing each other, could not be given once we had calmed down. He tells everyone else that disabled people need to feel more valued so that they know they can do so much more than just survive. I had gone along with a lot of flippant, fun and frivolous stuff with him over the years hoping that one day we'd sort things out seriously. I thought he knew my academic life was to be very hectic involving a very tightly organized home life like I assumed his was if I was going to really attempt to excel. But I was torn - what use a great publishing rate if I always would be this unbearingly empty inside? Worn out, I could not have supported him, nor any man in life as a partner by now ... and maybe I could have never done that much academically, anyway. I hated myself vehemently at times wanting to give everything up except him. In too many minds until I really did become absolutely nothing in no mind at all, and completely unfit to be anything else. I was disgusted at myself. He moved house I think at least four times in six months at that stage. it made him laugh. I became only confused of his child's age, when a discussion with a form teacher was mentioned. I've thought of this child a lot throughout the years. I'm glad for the sake of the child that we never met. I would never let a young child (and most other people) push my wheelchair on sand in my wildest dreams as I was misread as saying. I believe I meant how I would have still loved to watch his child enjoying the beach, from the grass or asphalt, while at that age. I used to dream about that since knowing the father. Now I respect that the child would have grown, and probably would be now with interests where onlookers would be unwanted. I can only really guess. The man was right though - I failed at Everything. It did not help or serve anything to direct vitriol at me seemingly about something I had already felt sick to my stomach about and not nearly as strong as I used to be able to take things. He could not help himself either. The situation was a very sick one which left many things hanging unanswered in a way that reconciling to move on in peace was not easy. I could have moved on in a very confused tightly held anger, bracing much fear and hurt as it seemed to me, but I had just seen what that could do. I also wanted so much to reach out as I had always tried before. He said in his election blurb that he could see the bigger picture. I wrote that he needed to see that six months earlier when replying to that last black e-mail with a numbed heavy heart and through tears, but have no longer really believed anything about my world in the same ways ever since. Again, these details can be so incredibly superfluous when divorced from an underlying critical matter. I always wondered if he was crying out for love under all his defences. I thought that straight away, well before reading any book or his own very public proclamations. I needed love. I also felt that he would be too uncomfortable to take the love from me that I had been waiting too damn longingly to give him, freely and openly. I think this all sounds even more now like I've been incredibly stupid. I had a huge amount to understand about my own emotional wellbeing.
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