Reading back through this blog I’ve come to one simple and unappealing conclusion, all I’ve done in life is survive. Then again have I even survived successfully? What did that solemn little fellow over on the right actually achieve?
I talk of surviving abuse but realistically that abuse still haunts me, causes sleepless nights and throws a shadow over me that pitches me into the deepest depression at the drop of a hat.
I talk of surviving the struggle of being a 12 year old homosexual in a society where sex between males wasn’t merely unacceptable, it was illegal until 1967 and then the age of consent was set at 21 leaving me short by some 7 years. My attempt to survive this led me to reject the possibility of a genuine relationship at the age of 13 and eventually cost me the friendship of the boy who desperately wanted to love me. My inept solution to my problems was to get a girlfriend and then cheat on her in the most despicable fashion by hanging around public toilets.
I talk of surviving bullying at grammar school and yet I’m only marginally less angry now than I was when that bullying was at it’s worst. The only success I had against that torment was the near murder of one of the bullies when I was 11 and lost all sense of reason as I tried my very hardest to strangle him.
I talk about surviving the violent punishments of a Stepfather who was unable to properly communicate with an over sensitive, confused and profoundly depressed adolescent and yet I find myself accepting more and more of the blame for those terrible fights. My damnable sense of fair play demands I acknowledge that he didn’t have the information he needed to understand me.
The one thing that I can honestly claim to have survived is a nearly fatal bout of pneumonia at the age of 8 which, at nearly 50 years ago, hardly qualifies for a lifetime achievement award.
Through my own bloody mindedness I got poor quality passes at A Level and S Level so achieved a pathetically self destructive goal of not getting a place at University, a miserable attempt to “teach my parents a lesson”. Going to University now, even if I get a First, has a hollowness to it, it’s more a desperate attempt at making up for lost time than a legitimate ambition.
I suppose that my turning away from drink, drugs and relentless casual sex at the age of 20 were something of a survival. I woke up in a strange flat after a party, stark naked and very sore, to be told that I’d danced and then “enjoyed myself quite a lot”. The worrying part of that for me was that I’d danced, something I simply didn’t do, which suggested that the enjoyment was completely without self control. It’s entirely possible or even probable that at least one of my gin and tonics was spiked but that’s a pretty vapid excuse. I’m genuinely thankful that in 1973 personal video recorders weren’t known and that the Internet was a long way in the future. I still have dark suspicions that in a dusty attic somewhere there are faded Polaroids of a ginger haired, apparently 16 year old doing things that he’d prefer not to see.
Love
Malcolm, you know, surviving is definitely a lifetime achievement. School, life, in fact the whole world is such a cruel place. Countless of predators are out there waiting to feed on, and consume, anyone not strong enough to fight back. Anyone showing signs of weakness, anyone brave enough to dare go their own way, going off-mainstream, are a potential meal. A snack. Chewed on and spit out.
Surviving, and making a life out of it all, despite everything; definitely a lifetime achievement.
Love
Daniel
Daniel
The rational part of me agrees with you that I have achieved a great deal and have really done a lot more than merely survive. Unfortunately the self critic in me, that horrible little voice that’s been nagging away almost all my life, keeps saying that I’ve I’ve got nothing to show for it all. I don’t know, some days it just feels like swimming through treacle.
Love
malcolm
Hey – don’t be so quick to condemn survival or we’ll all get depressed!
Sorry, Micky. Bit of a bad day in Malcolm town, bloody depression mugged me for some reason!
Love
Malcolm
All of us are only surviving, but we have to survive in order to achieve. In my opinion, achievement and accomplishments are more important than mere surviving. Whom have you loved and who has loved you? What beauty and comfort did you provide playing the organ, the violin, and singing? What about your written words in these blogs? They are helping us not only to understand you, but to understand others, and to understand each other. It is your self-worth and generosity to others that really matter. You have it in spades, Mac!
David
David
A very good point and a probably deserved mild rebuke. These fits of despondency just seem to hit me without warning and I forget the very real things that I’ve achieved. Perhaps it’s time I went back to writing about some of those achievements to remind me of my true worth.
Love
Mac
Ok, time to stop thinking like a victim and start thinking like someone who lived. You have done more than just survive, and I think down deep you realize that fact. You feel the need to blame yourself for every bloody thing that ever happened to you, and deep down you know it’s so not true!
A mere surviver would have never been able to make a love match and you know it. A mere survivor would have been happy with any attention, be it good or be it bad. You my dear friend knew the difference and were smart enough to turn around and embrace that love with your entire heart and soul.
Let go of your guilt, yes that is what is fueling this latest bout of depression, at least to me. Every single time you make a break thru and find out something new that would point up the fact that you were not at fault for something depression slams down on you. Why? Because it is so much easier to live in the safe house you have built, than to venture out into the unknown. Your depression keeps you in the house, safe and yet so unhappy. Push your boundaries, fight your envelope and make your way out into the open. It’s scary as every level of hell, but it does get easier.
Biki
I’ll have to put my hands up on this one, guilt has probably been one of the definining features of my life. It’s sad that one depraved teenager can inflict so much damage on a defenceless child and cause the guilt that then doesn’t go away. As I titled a recent post it seems to be “one step forward and two steps sideways” most of the time with the occasional slip backwards.
Sometimes I think that the only lesson I’ve learned in all this time is how to focus generalised anger into unmmitigated hate towards the original architect of these problems but even that often fails to get me facing the right way.
Love
Mac
Mac I can only ask by what measure do we define those things? Do we create our own standards? In this so personal area I can’t help but feel the “yard stick” of success has to be one of our making. There is no set rule on what surviving means or dealing with the abuse suffered. There simply can’t be because we are all different and all have different degrees of abuse or situations.
For me the measure was inside myself. Am I better today than I was yesterday. Do I care more, feel more , love more? Am I happier, more joyful, more willing see the good in life? Am I more willing to help others, did I increase someones joy, and decrease someones suffering?
I can’t take credit for this view, it was Ron’s sweet love and showing me the way that brought me to see this for myself.
My journey will take a life time not due to the past, but because I want to be a better me every new day. Only when I live no more in this life will I have succeed in being the best I can be. And then it will be time for the next adventure!
I wish the best for you no matter what measure you use. May you always reach your mark, and may your standard be……YOU!
Scottie
I admire your (or Ron’s) philosophy and it’s definitely a very positive outlook.
One of my worst personal traits is that I’m always ready, eager even, to see good in others, which has brought crushing disappointment and hurt on many occasions and yet I’m equally ready to think the worst about myself.
I accept that the events of my childhood and teenage years are a lifelong burden which I’ll never erase but I still tend to blame myself for allowing those events to divert me from what should have been a single minded push for the excellence which everyone assured me was easily within my grasp.
One more thing, Mac, and I promise this is the last you will hear from me for a week because I am going out of town in the morning for a little sabbatical!
Remember that the perpetrator was also a teenager, not a whole lot older than you. I am NOT trying to excuse his behavior, because it was very wrong. However, he too was young and though he should have known better, perhaps was very impulsive and could not help himself. Though he hurt you very much at the time, I think it is time for you to forgive (and I’m not talking here about Christian forgiveness) him and let it go. Despite the pain and hurt at the time, you have moved on with your life. Celebrate what you have now and let that loose. And stop blaming yourself (being guilty, that is) for what you did not or could not do to stop it. Please just let it go. Don’t let it rule your life and make you depressed. You are too worthy to be still dragged down by that experience. Time for you now just to find some peace. Keep writing about the happy times and share them with us.
Love,
David
David
Believe me when I say that I wouldn’t mind if you spoke up every five minutes, when I get into these depressive states I really do need nagging about the positive side of me and the very real things that I know I’ve achieved. Had the abuse been a stand alone issue I suspect that I’d have moved on some time ago and if not forgiven at least forgotten a worthless teenager who, I know for a fact, became a worthless man. What still hurts, and is the hardest thing to forgive, is that he poisoned my relationship with my family and introduced a fragility of spirit that had never been there before, the grinning 8 year old and the confident, smiling 9 year old in my recent photos are, or were, the real me.
You’ll be pleased to know that the post I’m currently writing and several after that are a return to my musical adventures, themselves a very real mark of my true worth and achievements in the face of considerable adversity.
Love
Mac
Malcolm,
Self pity is OK sometimes, but where does it begin and where does it end? Easy question to put in writing hard to answer. it has taken me much to answer for myself. Zig Ziglar says “Your past is important because it has gotten to where you are today, but not nearly as important as the way you see your future” I have been saying that to myself for years, and the shadows of the past try to cloud the way I see my future.
Honestly there are some days where all I can do is flip through TV shows that I really don’t want to watch because being numb in front of the TV is as much energy as i can manage.
And when I think i am totally lost, or as you say, “just surviving” i do one of a few rituals that help me see beyond the momentary depression.
You do add value to people’s lives. My first email to you was that your words help me in more ways than I could ever express.
When you are in a better place write down about 10 things where you know you have made a difference in someone else’s life. We touch people in so many different ways, sometimes we don’t even know. I once helped a person out of an abusive relationship only because I continually focus on solutions at work. To me there are no problems only solutions-especially at work.
I will start it for you:
My writing inspires Steve to be strong, by feeling the pain.
love and light to you
-Steve
Steve
That’s a very nice first item for a list that perhaps I will write, thank you.
One of my least attractive traits is this ability to descend into the very worst self pity and introspection, it’s something that used to deely upset my Mother. When I was being bullied for that most vacuous of reasons, having ginger hair, I developed the absolute conviction that I must be surpassingly ugly and worthless. Of course the negativity was heavily reinforced by abuse and the struggle with my sexual identity all of which meant that I spiralled into despair and believed that I had nothing worth living for and no real future. My stepfather’s often stated belief that music wasn’t a legitimate career path for a boy, despite my obvious talent, and his lack of support only served to make things worse which was where our problems began.
One of the things that makes me so glad that I decided to “bare all” in this blog is that there are so many caring people, many of whom have added their support in comments like this. As long as I have this sort of support, and sometimes necessary chivvying, I know I can avoid the sort of despair that culminated in an overdose at 19.
Once again thank you and I will write that list
Mac
Mac, you have done much more than survive. I think some of your consternation/frustration may be coming from applying societal expectations to yourself. Fuck societal expectations. Most are based on outdated models and unrealistic thinking, not to mention the unproductive consumerist injection we get every day. They set you up for failure, as it makes it all the easier to keep you tamed and confused. From the stories you have told so far, I’d be very happy if I had a life like yours and had done the things you have done. You have overcome a lot and are still kicking. I also think your intelligence, creative nature, personal perspective, and reflective introspection are things other people should be striving for. I certainly admire them in you. Most people end up doing daily damage to themselves by trying to be something they are not, or worse something they don’t want to be. Keep experiencing, keep loving, keep being the light, and always be true to yourself and those you care about. Those are the ideals I admire in fellow human beings and you have them all in abundance Mac.
Kyle, these are wise observations indeed and give me a lot to consider. I think a big part of the problem is that as I review the tragi-comedy that was my childhood, adolescence and young adulthood I see on almost every page a point at which I could put a cross and write “should’ve told someone” in the margin. Added to that the anger that should be directed at the sources of pain and suffering all too often has no target anymore and turns inwards. I’ve always been prone to blaming myself as the architect of my own downfall and as a consequence I become angry at my own failure to change things. I do acknowledge one important quality in myself and that is a relentless honesty which I hope helps others to make some sense of their own pain. For the future I will continue to offer myself and my support to any who can make use of it because that helps to validate my suffering, caused in no small part by systemic failings in family, school and medical care. As long as I leave a Mac shaped hole in the world when I leave I suspect that my time will have been a success after all.