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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 7 of 7. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by sunny10 on February 2, 2005, at 12:50:05
"Please Hear What I'm Not Saying
Don't be fooled by me. Don't be fooled by the face I wear. For I wear a mask, a thousand masks, masks that I'm afraid to take off, and none of them is me. Pretending is an art that's second nature with me, but don't be fooled. For God's sake don't be fooled. I give you the impression that I'm secure, that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without, that confidence is my name and coolness is my game, that the water's calm and I'm in command, and that I need no one. But don't believe me. My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask, ever-varying and ever-concealing. Beneath lies no complacence. Beneath lies confusion and fear and aloneness. But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it.I panic at the thought of my weakness and fear being exposed. That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind, a nonchalant sophisticated facade, to help me pretend, to shield me from the glance that knows. But such a glance is precisely my salvation. My only hope and I know it. That is, if it's followed by acceptance, if it's followed by love. It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself, from my own self-built prison walls, from the barriers I so painstakingly erect. It's the only thing that will assure me of what I can't assure myself, that I'm really worth something.
But I don't tell you this. I don't dare. I'm afraid to. I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance, will not be followed by love. I'm afraid you'll think less of me, that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me. I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing, that I'm just no good, and that you will see this and reject me.
So I play my game, my desperate pretending game, with a facade of assurance without and a trembling child within. So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks, and my life becomes a front. I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk. I tell you everything that's really nothing, and nothing of what's everything, of what's crying within me. So when I'm going through my routine, do not be fooled by what I'm saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying, what I'd like to be able to say, what for survival I need to say, but what I can't say.
I don't like to hide. I don't like to play superficial phony games. I want to stop playing them. I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me, but you've got to help me. You've got to hold out your hand even when that's the last thing I seem to want. Only you can wipe away from my eyes the blank stare of the breathing dead. Only you can call me into aliveness. Each time you're kind and gentle and encouraging, each time you try to understand because you really care, my heart begins to grow wings, very small wings, very feeble wings, but wings! With your power to touch me into feeling you can breathe life into me. I want you to know that.
I want you to know how important you are to me, how you can be a creator, an honest-to-God creator of the person that is me if you choose to. You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble, you alone can remove my mask, you alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic and uncertainty, from my lonely prison, if you choose to. Please choose to. Do not pass me by. It will not be easy for you.
A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. The nearer you approach to me the blinder I may strike back. It's irrational, but despite what the books say about man, often I am irrational. I fight against the very thing that I cry out for. But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls, and in this lies my hope. Please try to beat down those walls with firm hands but with gentle hands for a child is very sensitive.
Who am I, you may wonder?
I am someone you know very well.
For I am every man you meet
and I am every woman you meet.Charles C. Finn"
Thank you for all of you here at Babble who help me as I struggle to come out from behind my mask, grow wings, and learn to love.
I hope I help you, too.
Posted by Susan47 on February 2, 2005, at 13:09:10
In reply to A thanks -Please Hear What I'm Not Saying, posted by sunny10 on February 2, 2005, at 12:50:05
Posted by jujube on February 2, 2005, at 21:07:50
In reply to A thanks -Please Hear What I'm Not Saying, posted by sunny10 on February 2, 2005, at 12:50:05
Wow! Thanks so much for sharing that. I see so much of myself in those words, as I am sure many others do. I wish I trust myself enough to let the walls come down and to overcome my fears of emotional intimacy. I want so much sometimes to remove my masks and expose myself a little bit more, but it is hard and I've grown comfortable behind the walls and the masks. The way I look at it now, although I may be guarded, I can't say I'm unhappy. So, I guess that's a good thing. At least I know that I won't get hurt.
Posted by sunny10 on February 3, 2005, at 12:44:48
In reply to Re: A thanks -Please Hear What I'm Not Saying » sunny10, posted by jujube on February 2, 2005, at 21:07:50
> Wow! Thanks so much for sharing that. I see so much of myself in those words, as I am sure many others do. I wish I trust myself enough to let the walls come down and to overcome my fears of emotional intimacy. I want so much sometimes to remove my masks and expose myself a little bit more, but it is hard and I've grown comfortable behind the walls and the masks. The way I look at it now, although I may be guarded, I can't say I'm unhappy. So, I guess that's a good thing. At least I know that I won't get hurt.
-------
It's odd, isn't it, that we stick to the devil we know? I know all about guarded. I was given that piece to read while being released from being an inpatient at a mental hospital. The pdocs were letting me out, but the T wanted to warn me about pretending to be fine and how much more I could hurt myself if I continued to pretend.The problem with being guarded and not "letting yourself get hurt" is that hurt can always creep in from the outside world just because of my reaction to it. I could be housebound and listen to the radio and get triggered if I didn't work on WHY I reacted to things the way that I did. Because the truth of it is that other than death of a loved one, which can be grieved, we are the ones that hurt ourselves. If we don't know ourselves well enough, we choose poor companions who really don't suit us at all. Then we wonder why it did last. And hurt because our dream "of what might have been" died.
By not taking risks, we risk being unsatisfied, and unloved, for the rest of our lives.
That's no longer good enough for me. I want it all. I want to try things and take the chance that I'll fail; because all humans are fallible. I want to travel, whenever I can, after scrounging money together for ages; I won't miss out on seeing the different cultures that the world has to offer just because I'm afraid of change. I want to reach out to other people, like on Babble, because I am a people person. I love people; I'm not going to close myself off anymore because people may judge me.
I keep that essay around because I REFUSE to be that person any more than I HAVE to. The times you HAVE to? Sometimes, to save someone else's feelings I will keep my opinion to myself if I already know their feelings on the subject. When something bad happens and I can't just let myself cry at work... And after I leave those situations, I let myself feel the feelings that I suppressed at the time. Sometimes it is many hours later, sometimes days, but that is not nearly as bad as the 28 years of my life that I never let them out; I stuffed them so deep inside me that they turned toxic.
Now, granted, I am a slow learner. It took me two inpatient and one outpatient hospital stays before I started to learn. (Those toxic feelings became positively life-threatening)
But I won't visit there again. I'll check in with a T from time to time, when I can no longer handle everything myself, and work on my affirmations. (which, by the way, I put no stock at all into when they we first suggested to me) Now, those affirmations are why I am
sunny10
Posted by sunny10 on February 3, 2005, at 12:49:45
In reply to A thanks -Please Hear What I'm Not Saying, posted by sunny10 on February 2, 2005, at 12:50:05
I just re-read what I wrote and realized that I wrote "we wonder why it did last".... Of course I meant why it "DIDN'T last"....
sorry- must have been confusing...
Posted by jujube on February 3, 2005, at 18:41:48
In reply to Re: A thanks -Please Hear What I'm Not Saying, posted by sunny10 on February 3, 2005, at 12:44:48
Ya, we are certainly creatures of habit! Thanks for sharing your experiences with me. I know there are things I need to work on, and, perhaps, I will try therapy one of these days. That would probably be a safe and neutral environment to start being more open and less guarded. I know that I take risks in many areas of my life, but hold back in others. So, ya, there is work to be done. Well, I guess it's all part of the journey! I am going to save your posts and look back at them when I find myself closing myself off IRL.
Thanks again Sunny. Your story is inspiring for me.
Posted by sunny10 on February 4, 2005, at 13:07:34
In reply to Re: A thanks -Please Hear What I'm Not Saying » sunny10, posted by jujube on February 3, 2005, at 18:41:48
good to know I can help someone with my stories.
Thank you to you for your validations!
This is the end of the thread.
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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
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