Choice

Emotional abuse is poison. It steals your free will. I am not a victim, but I know exactly how it works. This is meant to be an essay about mental hygiene. The anti-poison is psychoeducation. If you think to depend on what others say, you can at least try to learn self-reference. As a Vachss-reader I have been deep into the topic. And as an adult, you seem to face the same traps over and over again. It’ s like a voice whispering you are worth nothing, I have the power over you and you do what you have to do. Take a minute, think it over again and tell yourself I hear the voice, okay, it’ s there, but I don’ t wanna listen to it, I am boss. Let it be violence, let it be drug addiction, there’ s always a seed planted in your mind years and years ago and you have the power to fight it. As stated otherwise, we make our own monsters, but now I’ m repeating foreign thoughts. There’ s hope. Build a peer-group. Let go negative influences. If you’ re facing the same problems over and over again, each time you’ re a bit smarter, even wiser and you don’ t need to repeat your mistakes. It’ s all about choice. I choose to smoke, I choose to listen, I choose to turn the other way, I choose to build my own family.

Hate and fear are the enemies. If you didn’ t learn faith, as an adult it’ s difficult double. Take it or leave it, the lesson’ s worth a try. Surround yourself with encouraging people. Even become an encourager. Learn to look at the positive sites, hard to find, they may be little, but they’ re there. Let me leave a final quote, printed on some dub-record I own :

Trustbeliefloverespect

Hard enough, you do not *have* to repeat the evil seed. It’ s your choice, you are in control.

Stay tuned.

Another Life

Revenge is like any other religion: There’ s always a lot more preaching than there is practicing. And most of the preaching is about what not to practice.
“Vengeance is mine” translates to: “It is not yours.” The karma-peddlers will tell you how doing nothing is doing the right thing, reciting “What goes around comes around” in that heavy-gravity tone reserved for the kind of ancient wisdom you always find in comic books.
Every TV “counselor”, every self-help expert, every latte-slurping guru…they all chant some version of the same mantra: “Revenge never solves anything.”
Their favorite psalm is Forgiveness. And their hymn books are always open to the same page.
Get it ? When you crawl away, you’ re not being a punk; you’ re just letting the cosmos handle your business. Whoever hurt you, they’ ll get theirs, don’ t worry. Just have a little faith.

Down here, we see it different. We don’ t count on karma. But you can count on this: hurt one of us, we’ re all coming for you.

—-

Beginning of “Another Life” by Andrew H. Vachss