Posted: Wed Oct 20, 2004 1:20 am Post subject: My 4 cents
I believe it’s time to talk about my story as well. I don’t know where I will start, nor untill where I will go, like I don’t know if I will complete or post this message. But I will give it a shot.
I have always been different from the others, when I was young I wasn’t weird, but I was very different. I am originally from a country in Eastern Europe where the cult of the “cool” is at its highest. People, and especially kids, were spending a lot of time and energy to show off, to put down other people and to try to seem as cool as possible. That’s where I was born and lived untill the age of ten. I was different because I did not curse, try to make fun of the others, try to seem as cool as possible or be mean. I was always trying to be friendly, to help those who needed help and to have harmonious relationships with those around me. Alas, my peers did not appreciate this and from the beginning I became the target of many jokes, laughter and bad words. I believe that the deepest roots of my condition lie in this particular stage of my life, whereas the rest of it built its core on these fundations. Such an affirmation comes after peculiar analysis where I discovered with a lot of effort and with a lot of time that my unconscious is always alert and ready to be the target of denigration. In simple words, on a very sublime and unconscious level, I prepare(-ed) myself to be mocked by those around me.
Being made fun of while I had the best intentions did make me very sad, untill one day when I simply decided to stay home instead of going outside and swim in the sea of hypocrisy around me. That was around the age of 10, after years of psychological abuse received by a child who was more sensitive than the average.
The divorce of my parents didn’t improve things. One day I was woken up by my mother and told that we had to leave. That was when I was aroud 5, it was a sunny Sunday and that was the day the sky fell on me. Following that, I was thrown into an ocean of uncertainities and insecurity in which I drowned many times and where only the fact that I survived by breathing, eating, drinking and being able to hide the earthquakes going on inside me (actually, this was a lesson I learned when I was very young. The more you show vulnerability, the more you’re likely to be picked on. Try to hide as much as possible and you stand a chance. The dog pack theory).
Divorce usually means when two married people decide to break their marriage contract. For me, it meant moving very often, being secluded inside for days, weeks and months in order to avoid being kidnapped by my father, going through attempts to be kidnapped and cutting the few social ties I had with my peers, which were replaced by the company of my grandmother who was scared of many things and who did not let me even run in order to not sweat and catch a cold and the presence of my mentally sick aunt.
Sure, the political instability in my country did not help either. As a matter of fact, after a bloody revolution when the Communist part was thrown off and after waiting for a year to notice that 6000 people died almost in vain since the new party was made of mostly of the old regime’s men, my family decided to leave for the West. We headed for the Southern part of Italy where, surprize-surpize, the cult of the “cool” was even more present. Needless to say that to more mocking other interesting factors were added. Due to the financial and social status, my mother decided to get together with a man from our original country. Unluckly for us, with the exception of a brilliant mind and some lessons that made me a man (such as being strong, not show feelings, sports, etc.), this man was also very abusive with my brother and I, both physically and especially mentally. It was later on that we found out that he had some mental problems as well, in addition to being mean and selfish, and that he needed a way to let off steam. My brother was the unluckiest one since he is also weaker than me, therefore he received most of the punishement. Nevertheless, I was also constantly ready to be teased, hit, laughed at in addition to the neverending parody about my worthlessness. This was probably the second step towards my psychological situation that was slowly being built, both from the inside as well as from the outside.
At school, I was made fun of (no news here, it was as if I was attracting such behavior from others and later on I felt as if I deserved it) and was feeling pretty bad. I was in a foreign country, I had an accent, I was different, my family did not have a status (read any social or economical benefits) and I felt very weak. It was a feeling of total havoc, I was a body with a 5 milimeters in diameter soul ready to be torn by the outside world. I used to feel like that in my original country also, but this was even worse. Luckly, in addition to the bad elements, there was also some very good ones which made my life a little easier. As a matter of fact, at the end of my stay in Italy things improved for me and, despite the constant tension in my house, I went through an optimistic stage being influenced by the mid 90’s dance music, my body’s changes (when I was young I was a chubby child. That was one of the things that most kids used to mock me on.), starting to exercise and the dream that coming to Canada my life would change drastically. Such an optimistic stage was interrupted by my mother’s depression. Insecurity took her toll on her as well and she fell into a depressive and unstable mood that left her weak even after recovering miraculously. During this stage she hit and screamed at me and for the first time in my life I was betrayed by the only person that I really trusted and that has always supported me.
The relationship with my mother deserves to be explained a little. I think that in my unfortunate life I was blessed with a wonderful mother who cared about her sons more than herself and who was always ready to sacrifice herself for us. Unluckly, her kindness has attracted mostly bad people around her. In all her immaculacy, she did make one huge mistake regarding me. Since a tender age, the most common sentences that I remember was “I hope you will grow tall and strong.”, “I hope you will be at least 1.80 meters tall (5’11)”. Such sentences were repeated almost in an obsessive manner. Needless to say, I did not grow tall and strong. I stopped at 1.75 meters (5’9). Now, due to my sensitive nature, trust in my mother and since such indoctrination with this ideal started from an early age, it soon became part of my paradigm, part of what a person should be in order to be a person. But, the fact that I did not reach that ideal threw myself in a vortex of depression with a constant feeling of insufficiency. As a matter of fact, I did not feel like a person, like a human being. I felt I was less and felt that I would never become one. The sad part is that I had no control over that, over my genetics.
….I have to break this here, for the moment. I will continue another time.
Last edited by Sebastian on Thu Dec 21, 2006 5:43 am; edited 1 time in total
All right, I think it's time to continue my story. Like the first time, I don't know if I will post this or if I will be able to finish it, but I am giving it a try. The reason I haven't written in such a long time is because I write well only when I am inspired, and that happens mostly when I'm sad, something that hasn't happened in a long time.
Last time I wrote, I mentioned the beginning of my history which happened in my native country and in Italy. Nevertheless, Italy was only a temporary home for us, as we initially intended to head for Canada. After 5 years spent in the Southern region of Naples, we finally got accepted by the Canadian government and travelled to the new continent. My excitement was huge and the difference between the Neapolitan life and life in Canada was also incredibly different. Due to some special circumstances, we moved in an apartment in a Montreal ghetto. Here, two interesting things happened. Number one, from this time on, with very few exceptions, no one ever picked on me anymore. I had learned (or better to say perfected) one of the most precious lessons in life: do not show weakness, try to keep your weakensses as hidden as possible and people will not hurt you. This was corroborated with the different culture present here, which did not put such an emphasys on coolness. None the less, one unfortunate side effect of this lesson was that I had to lie in order to seem "normal", something I despised since it did not go hand in hand with my nature which is a sincere - sometimes overly sincere - one. Lies and sincerity is another duality that characterize my paradoxal character. Back in Italy, I had to lie in order to seem "normal" and to avoid getting hurt as well, but once you grow up, you really get tired of it, especially since you have to keep track of all the lies in order not to get busted.
The second thing that happened was the fact that physical punishments from my mother's partner ended as we stepped on Canadian soil. This was a shock for me, being used to it and the conclusion that I reached shocked me even more. I understood one of the "laws" of nature and of humans. It is a simple, animal-like one, and it is applied to absolutely anything, from individuals to societies, groups and countries: people will do bad things to you because they can do it. If they cannot, they will not and they will find all sorts of excuses for it. In Italy, we lived for some time in clandestinity, whithout any rights, but once in Canada, we were protected by the Government. Therefore, if we had been hurt physically, our mother's partner could have got in trouble. Simple, isn't it? Yet... people, especially those who have never been subject to violence, to insecurity, to war, etc., simply cannot and do not process such a basic thing. I will come back to this notion in Part 3 (the last part) of my story as this concept has been of vital importance for me.
Going to high-school was obviously a shock to me, but the good thing when you change country is that you can adopt a new identity, which I did. My new philosphy, the one about not showing weaknesses, worked pretty well. But, at the same time, my social phobia's roots grew deeper and deeper. I went through and experienced all sorts of things that most sociophobics are aware of. However, my condition had also some "original" particularities. As a matter of fact, in addition to the usual arrays of characteristics - among which was seeming snob and distant - I seemed to have some sort of "contagious" social phobia. No matter who I was in contact with, 99.9% of the people - young, old, teachers, students, trainers, co-workers, employers, so on so forth - after a certain time spent with me, started to feel uncomfortable, not at ease around me. In some circumstances, their discomfort was enormous. For example, the principal in my high school could barely look in my eyes ( I could barely look in anyone's eyes, by the way), most people turned away or tried to avoid me in order not to feel so bad. This simply disheartened me. There were times when I simply couldn't take it anymore. I mean, feeling bad myself is one thing, but making other people feel bad, especially some good people, some people I even admired, was too much for me. To this effect, there was/is a 0.1% people that were an exception. I still haven't figured out how they can be immune to such a thing, but they helped me more than I could imagine as it will be seen in Part 3.
Perhaps, one of the strangest side-effect of hiding everything inside was my "relationship" with girls. Women take an important part in my world. I have always been fascinated by them, since I was a child. I adore their beauty, their manners & grace, their characteristics and even some of their flaws. I have more trust in women - probably due to the influence of my mother - than I have in men...but all this did not help. In truth, without wanting, I discovered an amusing and interesting fact that everyone here should know by now: the more you ignore girls, the more they want you. The scenario was simple: I instinctively noticed some girls, they knew it. But, due to my social phobia, I remained silent, I did not show emotions, I seemed to ignore them...Slowly, slowly, they would get more and more curious, they tended to stare at me and do things to make me notice them. It was like a game. I knew it very well, I noticed everything and felt incredibly flattered, but remained impassible. Their attempts would escalate until they reached a maximum... but here, they would give up. Some of the most beautiful girls in the schools and places I attented fell in this trap that I never ever set. I remember one time, while I was in the subway, a girl that previously admired me sat right beside me. In front of us, there was an old man. During 3 stations she tried to catch my attention. She stared at me, she touched me with her knees, she even gave me several bumps, while I was frozen, staring in one direction. The old person saw everything and in the end looked at her with a smile that said something like: "Well, what do you want? This is life. Move on". She got straight up and got off the subway. Shortly, the old man got off too and I simply collapsed on myself.
After giving up, to them I probably was a bastard, a snob, a spoiled brat, a player.... how wrong they were... There was nothing that I wanted more than a real adventure, a girl besides me. I would have died to be hugged, caressed and to feel protected by a girl. I wanted to talk to them, I wanted to apologize for making them feel bad - some girls' self esteem suffered because of this - but, how could I tell them the amount of fear and insecurity I felt? How can I explain them that I felt like an incompetent, like a failure, like a sub-human specie? How could I make them understand that, in my vision, being with me was like entering a world of loneliness and sadness and that I did not want that to happene to anyone, since I wanted them to be with someone better, someone who could make them happy...?
From the above sentences some might suppose that I am very good looking or that I have some special qualities. Wrong. I simply dressed a bit nicely and put on my mask to hide what was going on inside me. The rest is psychology, I believe.
Fast forward in time, it's my first year of university at McGill and for a moment I felt elated. If there was one thing that kept me going foward, that was that one day in the future I might feel better, I might find something that would stop the suffering to which I didn't even have a name. I thought that University was the answer since it was the last step of school. I started well, but after only few weeks things started to deteriorate. Social Phobia was closing down on me, the scandals in my house kept increasing - the psychological abuse and scandals did not stop -, I was running short on money, had no one but myself to rely on and the old characteristic of my SP, making people feel uncomfortable, started hitting again, making me feel guilty again. As time progressed, things went worse and worse until I simply could not take it anymore. There were times when I could not lift my eyes to look at the professor or my surroundings, I felt compressed by the athmosphere as if I were 3 kilometers under the sea and when I arrived at home I simply fell in my bed drenched of energy. After managing to complete two semesters, I quit university. Soon afterwards, the Italian restaurant where I worked during week-ends for four years went bankrupt and closed. This was my last link with the external world. The restaurant was close, I knew the people there and felt more comfortable than anywhere else, which is not saying much. I remember that some of the best times I had was walking home at night, after work, admiring the quiet streets, the mountain, the fresh air, the stars, the moon (what a travel companion... ), the museums and feeling as if I were the only person on this island.
After the restaurant closed, I was cut from the outside world and reached the lowest point of my life. I was overweight, I stayed home all the time, most of the time closed in my small, asphyxiating room, watching TV only at night when there was nobody around. During the day, I was a vegetable, lying in my bed, staring at the ceiling. I had no plans for the future and felt dead (incidentaly, I started watching an HBO serie called "Dead like me" with a girl who died and became a grim reaper. I felt a lot like her). During this time, I lived mostly in my head. Imagination and fantasy helped me cope with reality all my life. Before, as soon as I closed my eyes or even in the bus, I dreamed...and dreamed. But, this time I went over the limit. I was living in my head almost all the time. I imagined being tall, handsome, strong, acclaimed by anyone. I rejected anything I was and wanted to be someone different. I dreamt about success, love, adventures and so on so forth. This alienated me even more and as soon as I unavoidably came back to reality, the image that I saw in the mirror was so different and the surroundings so strange, that things seemed even worse than before. Imagination became like a drug for me. The more I did it, the more I wanted it and the less it worked to appease suffering.
At this point, I felt dead. But, I could never expect what would come next.
(To be continued).
Last edited by Sebastian on Mon Jul 25, 2005 3:21 pm; edited 1 time in total
Hi Sebastion - I have to say i am riveted by your story and i can't wait for part 3 - you write like a pro man, even cutting off at the most appropriate time to keep your audience intrigued.
Im sorry to hear your in a slump sebastian but take heart. Being able to express your feelings so eloquantly is a possitive characteristic. My biggest failing is i over analyse myself to much and i think if i put less thought into the basics of social interaction and become more impulsive, then i would start to enjoy life a whole lot more.
Joined: May 09, 2005 Posts: 1409 Location: United Kingdom
Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2005 11:42 am Post subject:
Wow, I don't know what it is about the way you write Sebastian but its fascinating to read...
I think its genuinely touching, maybe it's the way you equate your experiences with certains emotions so well.
This story reminds me of a young girl I know, a very similar trail of events has happened to her and she is becoming increasingly [visibly] mentally damaged as a result. I imagine her coming to this website in twenty years time and retelling the same story...
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), the museums and feeling as if I were the only person on this island.
