Serendipity

A friend of mine on Facebook posted this a few days ago and I thought it was worth putting out there.... " My parents beat me as a child and I am not traumatized," said the man his ex-partner reported for physical violence. "When I was a child they left me crying alone until I fell asleep and it was so bad I did not go out," said the man who spends long hours in social networks, affecting his sleep. "They punished me as a child and I'm fine," said the man who, every time he makes a mistake, says to himself words of contempt, as a form of self-punishment. "As a child, they put a heavy hand on me and I suffer from a trauma called 'education'," said the woman who still does not understand why all of her partners end up being aggressive. "When I became capricious as a child, my father locked me in a room alone to learn and today I appreciate it," said the woman who has suffered anxiety attacks and can not expla...

Four years and 8 months ago, I moved from my brother's home into my own apartment with my then boyfriend. It was great! We had no kids, we could come and go as we pleased, and do as we pleased. Life was good. Until I learned different things about this man who I had gone to school with back in junior high and senior high. Red flags popped up here and there, but I thought we were still in the getting-to-know-you faze.  Time passed. I learned that this man had a temper, a rotten attitude and a foul mouth that as time passed only got worse. And worse. And every time we argued, it was MY fault. Something I did...or did not do...made him mad. VERY mad.  I would cry. A lot. He would taunt me, calling me a "baby". Name calling would bring the tears and he'd say "they are only words". But I have to tell you that in all my years on this planet, I never cried as much as I did with him. Words hurt. They aren't the minute things we were taught in scho...

"When encountering emotional vampires, see what you can learn. It's your choice. You can simply feel tortured, resentful, impotent. Or, as I try to do, ask yourself, "How can this interaction help me grow?" — Judith Orloff Over the last several years, there has been a lot of talk about Emotional Vampires  and although I never knew the terminology, I knew the signs and the results of being around such people.  It's not only not pleasant, but very draining on anyone's mental, emotional and physical well-being. I've lived with people who were extremely pessimistic and negative in their outlooks on life, literally sucking dry anyone who stayed around them for any length of time.  But what of people who are so deeply and religiously convicted to the point that they have a completely different demeanor that instead of being joyous because of their belief and love of God they have become doom-sayers and very unhappy...even to the point that they are angry? ...