I'm grateful for: my room getting more organized; a confirmation on my reservation; that I'm still putting one foot in front of the other, somehow.

"I didn't ask you to fix me; I don't need you to fix me; I don't want you to fix me." It's repeating over and over in my head after I've hung up on MMF after *telling* her I was hanging up on her after telling her that I thought she was being mean and so forth. She wasn't listening to me, I was supposed to listen to her, take her suggestion, and be made 'better.'

Repeating OVER and Over and over. *Sigh*

I don't know what happens next. Either we take a break from each other for a while - or we have the big ol' fight to end big ol' fights and finally end a friendship that has lasted over twenty years, or - Hashem steps in and something else happens. That's all I can think of.

I will NOT listen to someone tell me how I need to be different - PARTICULARLY after I'd just been talking about how I am working on being myself DESPITE the fact that me being just as I am seems to be rather unlikeable by most people. I was telling her about saying something firmly that I really believe and how I had had the shakes for about an hour afterward. Because my life experience so far has been pretty reliable that when I am just myself, there are BAD consequences. Well, I was being myself in a homeschooling group that if I never heard from again wouldn't break my heart, so it wasn't the biggest risk in the world, but still. Expecting to get handed my head on a platter - again. Was sharing this with MMF and she starts telling me how I need to change - what I am doing wrong, and how if I only do what she says then people won't react badly to me and so on.

That is so not the point. She knows - I mean we have known each other for way more than twenty years, although we've been friends for about twenty-one. Yes, I actually bothered to do the math and that's about right. She knows, 'cause at various times I've told her about trying to be myself around people and the bad things that have resulted from it. I've accepted it. Okay - I'm basically not that likeable a person (by most people, anyway). I am not going to stick myself into a square hole trying to be anything other than who and what I am, and if some people don't like it, and are mean to me, then I need to build up my backbone, thicken my skin, and get on with the business of having a life. I do NOT need yet another 'suggestion' of how to be different in order not to have the same results.

MMF does not have to like me, or like everything about me. Heck, how many times have I kept my lips buttoned while she went on about *whatever* and waiting for it to be over. Because the good parts of our friendship are worth living through a few score hours like that.

And I want to be clear, that when I talk about being 'me,' I'm not talking about being hostile, or offensive, or cursing, or argumentative, or combative. I'm merely talking about stating my opinions, clearly, and for what they are. I have very strong opinions about some subjects for fairly obvious reasons. Obvious if you know anything about my past, anyway. I have strong opinions about evil, and about permitting evil to get a toe-hold. I have strong opinions about what parents ought and ought not to do, must and must not do. About the responsibility of being a parent and the necessity of letting children be who and what they are. About, oh, well, lots of things. Institutions that many people hold dear (Western/allopathic medicine, and the educational system, for some blatant examples). I really am not combative. I don't get in people's faces and argue with them. I don't - for instance - tell the woman she was being a f**king moron; I merely advanced my opinion as an alternative to what she was suggesting/promoting. I'm not even being blind and justifying myself, I've spent way too much of the last twenty years analyzing myself and my actions and my intentions and my agendas. Honestly. To be anything other than plainly honest here. That is what my diary is for, after all.

MMF got *really* angry at my 'refusal to take a suggestion,' and started to lecture me about how 'recovery is change.' Oh, yeah, I need that lecture from her. Oh, man, there are no words.

'Change' for me, is speaking my mind, and letting the chips fall where they may. And if I have to shake for an hour afterwards, well, after I've survived this one then the next time I speak my mind I may only shake for half an hour. It's change, it's progress, it is recovery. It is NOT becoming the sort of 'nicey-nice' POS that I've spent most of my life trying to be because everyone has told me that that's the problem. That *I* am the problem. That having my strong and not 'nice' opinions is the problem.

I am not going to stop believing in evil because some deluded sweetie-pie wants to believe in a world where if we were only nice to everyone who doesn't understand us then they would be nice to us and we would all live in perfect peace and harmony. I did NOT call her either a f**king moron or a deluded sweetie-pie. I do that here because this is MY place. Anyone who doesn't like me here can just go away.

Sorry, kind of on a tear and there it went.

And, I am NOT going to stop believing that the only way to fight evil is to actually Fight it. I am not going to stop believing that every time I am just myself I'm going to get shit for it by pretending to believe other than what I believe and then thinking that I've somehow 'changed' the situation. The only way to change the belief about people giving me shit for being me is to be myself and allow the opportunity for the shit not to happen.

Now, so far, I haven't gotten shit for what I said to those people yet, instead I got beaten on by MMF. Is that an improvement?

I'm scared. I'm very scared that now MMF won't be there for me when I need her. I'm scared that the next time the grody flashbacks start up and I am lost in some hell from the past she won't be there to listen and to understand and to give comfort.

Part of being myself and accepting the consequences means I don't pretend to accept her 'suggestion' for becoming 'all better now' and act like that is okay when I was just needing to talk about my scared feelings - the feelings I am trying to grow through, grow out of, grow into or whatever it is. It means that I trust that either she will be there when I need her, or that I won't be needing her again, or that Hashem will provide some other source of the support and comfort that I need for getting through any more of the disgusting past.

Yuck.

I wish I didn't have a disgusting past. I wish I were a more naturally likeable person. But most of all, I wish I was able to be okay with the apparently inevitable reactions of others. And I wish MMF could at least try to accept me as I am, who I am and what I am, instead of getting all co-dependent on me and trying to 'fix' a problem that only exists in her head (since to me it's not a 'problem,' it's just a part of the life I've been given).

Wow, I'm amazed I got all of that out. I'm amazed my fingers held up this long. I'll be amazed if anyone reads it all, too. ;-) Nah, I know I've got some pretty amazing friends here. Wow. Kinda blows me away.

It's almost two-and-a-half as Israelis say, and I really have to *try* to get some sleep. If the adrenaline has run down enough.

:: Yesterdays : Tomorrows ::

~~~Last Five Entries~~~
Hi and goodbye - 2010-10-15
I'll be moving on - 2010-10-10
Gold membership and stuff - 2010-10-10
Decisions, decisions - 2010-10-07
Days to go - 2010-10-06