words

Quote

there are no perfect victims

This quote is very important to me because of my history of being a victim as both a child and an adult.

For a vast amount of time, I saw myself as a perfect victim. Not just innocent but very special because of what happened to me. This specialness meant that I was not responsible for anything that happened to me.

The reality:

  • Anyone can be a victim of sexual abuse.
  • Anyone can perpetrate sexual abuse.
  • The only person responsible for the abuse is the perpetrator.
  • We are all accountable for proactive prevention and how we respond to victims and perpetrators.
  • There is no ‘right way’ to heal or a ‘correct’ response to experiencing sexual abuse.
  • Every survivor and circumstance is unique.‍

Coming out of denial was rather painful because I had to see myself as I really was. Flawed and imperfect.

I see this in online catfish incidents that end up on Netflix. Some of these people see themselves as perfect victims, when in reality they also play a part in the role. Sometimes a big part in that role.

One of the biggest lessons I had to learn in my life was: If I’m over 18 I am responsible for myself and how I feel. All of it.

It sounds a lot easier than it is in reality. G.

We are hard wired to see the bad in our lives

Last night I was desperately trying to focus on anything other than the bad experience I had earlier in the day. I could change focus for a short while then back to the bad.

The reason we are hard wired, is so we could survive the tiger waiting in the bushes, ready to attack and eat us.

We are hard wired to SEE the tiger, so we can escape it. This is VERY important. Without it we would be tiger breakfast.

Residential people are able to choose what they focus thier attention on.

Eventually I was able to shift my focus, but I took a while.

Gavin.

Benefit finding

Benefit finding in psychology refers to the positive psychological changes or benefits that individuals perceive after experiencing a challenging or stressful life event. It’s a coping mechanism where individuals actively seek and find positive aspects or growth opportunities within difficult situations.

“Don’t loose what you have, to what you have lost”

Gavin.

Quote

“The surest way to work up a crusade in favour of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behaviour ‘righteous indignation’ — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.” 

 – Aldous Huxley

The mind

“The harder the mind struggles to get rid of the pain, the greater the pain. 
The mind can never find the solution, nor can it afford to allow you to find the solution, because it is itself an intrinsic part of the ‘problem.’ 

Imagine a chief of police trying to find an arsonist when the arsonist is the chief of police. 

You will not be free of that pain until you cease to derive your sense of self from identification with the mind,
which is to say from ego.” 

~ Eckhart Tolle

Hi All.

Sorry I’ve not been around much lately. Been focusing on music, which is my passion.

This quote from Eckhart is one of my favourites. Identification with your thoughts is the great trap of our century.

My thoughts are not who I am. This is the great freedom to be had…

Not easy, but it is essentially the path to peace.

Gavin.

Father there – but not there

I was born in 1966 into a dysfunctional family. I didn’t ever have a relationship with my father because he didn’t want that with his kids.

Apparently, my eldest sister did spend time with my father for a while when she was a child. She said that this time she had was precious, but didn’t last.

So, my father would ignore me except when he was angry or when he wanted to make a fool of me. I was a sensitive child and wasn’t the typical male kid, but I was very good at calisthenics and all things fitness.

I just can’t understand why someone would have three children and then ignore them(?)

I ran away from home at age 16 because I could no longer put up with the mental/emotional and physical abuse from my father.

I moved to the city permanently and I avoided going home to visit my parents because of my father’s abuse.

I would get these letters from him asking me to come home because my mother wanted to see me. Over the years I got a lot of letters from him asking me to come home because of my mother. He never said anything about wanting to see me (in these letters).

Both my parents would visit me in the city (where I lived) every time they would come to the city, but they would only stay for ten minutes. I worked out this short time was all my father could put up with to see me. They would have a coffee and then leave. My father often gave me money. My mother said it was because he felt guilty. I will never know if this was true because my father refused to speak to me about anything other than: how’s your job? How’s your car? etc.

My father died in 1999. He was both not-a-good-person, and an intelligent and hard-working man. Even when I spoke to other people in the town (when he died) they said he was seen both as an arshole and a good person.

When I watch stuff on Netflix about families and the amazing bonds they can have I am baffled by it because I never had that with my family. I can well imagine how nice it would be. But I’ll never know the love of family.

Gavin.

I changed my name to Gavin when I was 33, hence the different name on the headstone.

Netflix – Murder of Gabriel Fernandez

This may sound a bit odd but there are things I think everyone should watch.

This six-part series is one of them, that I feel everyone should watch, even though it is truly horrific.

I had no idea that another human could do this to a child. I’m still trying to recover from seeing it. I think it will stay with me forever. In my heart I will remember Gabriel every day.

My first memories of my life were being scared of my parents, but Gabriel must have been completely terrified of his mother and her boyfriend. He was so terrified that he wrote letters say he was going to kill himself.

https://www.netflix.com/au/title/80220207

Some of the show I wasn’t able to watch so I skipped through those bits. The mother’s testimony being one of the things I could NOT watch.

romance scam series on Netflix love rats

I watched this show with compassion and empathy as much as I could.

I’ve been in love before and the feelings I felt were VERY intense and felt the other person loved me. It was a really enjoyable time of my life. It lasted for almost three years, so it was significant.

But no matter how much I love someone (family or significant other), I would never give anyone thousands of pounds.

The most I’ve ever given anyone was $550 and this person was a friend, not a lover. But today I would not give money to other people.

Feelings are not facts.

My feelings can be stirred as much by imagined as by real causes. Feelings are an emotional reaction to a thought, belief, or perception of a factual situation. By definition they are not facts. (Grow-Mental Health 12 step program).

This is the part of the TV program that really upset me. These people (men and women) were going by their feelings only. They really had no objectiveness about what they were doing.

When it comes to romance behaviors, I have always been very suspicious of romance behaviors. A lot of the time the person doing the romancing, are doing it to try and control another person or to get something from that person.

If someone does something kind towards another without any strings attached, I am more than happy for that to happen. My ex would buy me a bag of chocolate honeycombe. This was a caring and welcome act.

The only thing I felt controlled by, was the sex. The sex was really good, and this had strong effect on me. So, I really lost my objectivity around the sexual part of our relationship.

I’ve been scammed before. YouTube ads worked on me, and I bought things that didn’t work, or they weren’t what they were saying. I felt stupid when it happened.

The people on the TV show hand over a lot of money to these romance scammers. They all said: “well, I love you, so I must trust you”. I understood what they were saying but it didn’t add up. 2 plus 2 is not 22.

For me my feelings can be very intense, but these feelings they are never facts. The feelings will pass eventually.

Feelings are like the weather. They are, in fact, a sort of internal weather. I just have to go on living through its changes as I do with the weather outside – and the bad weather can’t last. (Grow-Mental Health 12 step program).

Gavin.