happiness contd
Bitty
a) please forgive my typing; my program does not seem to want to type
capital letters properly; aka when i try typing capital h it shows up as a
capital j. so bear with that, please.
b) in an effort to get my damn backgammon program done, i havent been
responding to the posts i want like i would like. So mainly the whole thread
on happiness:
No, putting on a smile and pretending to be happy does not help me
convince myself that i am happy. it makes others think that i am. too well,
wuite often.
it is fine advice; however, happiness comes from the simpleness inside
for me, and faking a smile just doesnt do anything but make the ME inside want
to cry more. My basic nature is neutrally unhappy. unhappy as in not happy.
due to circumstances, its been a while since i have been the calm emotionless
bitch that i always was. i may not have been happy, but i wasnt fucked up like
i am now.
happiness, to me, is defined as the following:
a moment when everyting inside clicks and i feel love for
everyone and everything (within reason) and just smile foolishly, content to be
where i am, when i want nothing more than what i have right there.
Trying to be happy is hell. I dont remember who said what in the
thread, but it was mentioned that being happy meant being unhappy, that sooner
or later everyting will crash. this is me, too; i was right when i said that
i cannot handle happiness. give me mosery, give me hell, give me hate, give me
hurt: i may not deal withg it well, but at least my inferioirty comnplex will
say "hey i desreve this." happiness i never felt i deserved.
fine. so have an ego-boost; people care, im a great person, etc.
That doesn't counteract much.
It started to at one point.
Not in time?
Maybe too soon?
I don't know.
But all i remember of most of my life is pain. so dont many people.
how can i be expected to have a self-esteem when i got _punished_ for anything
i did? in 1st grade, i was the "smart one." always done with my work early,
perfectly right; "the smartest kid in the school," who soon skipped a grade. i
was reading gone with the wind and the lord of the rings in 1st grade.
so what did the teacher do?
my one fault scholastically, in elementary school, was always my handwriting.
penmanship in general.
so there was "coloring time"
well, the teacher took my box of crayons and snapped them all in half because i
could never quite manage to color in the lines. still cant. in my phonics
book, she considered my printing too messy. so she TORE UP my entire book.
catholic school hell. but it caused the other students to stay away. i was
the "smart one" the teacher went out of her way to separate me from the otehr
kids so that at recess theyd all be like "go read your book" she encouraged
this rather than trying to stop it like she should have.
a dumb little hell story. but it shows why i dislike people, why i never grew
close to anyone; most people i know stopped speaking to me when i actually
skipped, and the kids in the class that i joined didnt want anything to do with
the little baby who was still "smarter." they were struggling through sweet
valley high. i had tested past the college level in reading. i was outcast
for this
many people have similar stories.
but when my mother never let me GO to the parties that all the other kids had,
when i wasnt allowed to go over for slumber parties or to go to a movie, they
never saw me outside of the school atmosphere.
my mom from day one was always telling me how fat and ugly i am. i lost tons
of weight, and she STILL insults me about it. when for 18 years i hear this,
how am i supposed to believe difefrently?
in seventh grade i came in second in the countywide writing contest.
my mom went to pick me up.
mr g. (my teacher) congratulated me. the judges congratted me. the principal
congratted me. my mom didnt. never a word. 2nd. out of over 200. i got a
plaque. wasnt even allowed to put it on my wqall. never a congrats from my
family.
so this is why i was never happy. sall my training and conditioning was that
i wasnt good enough, and not a single person to combat it.
the first time in my entire life that i was happy?
the moment when i held my baby brother in my arms for the first time. he was
less than a day old. he was bald and red and had crossedeyes. but i loved
that baby more than anything. he became the one reason i didnt run away. the
]one reason i stayed at my house. because if i left i wouldnt have anything,
because i wouldnt have him.
i was 10.
Ten years before i discovered happiness in any form.
The second time it creeped up on me. I slowly found myself smiling all of the
time without realizing it. was it the cute guy in drama with the _great_
eyes? (and nice ass ;p ) was it the great debates i had in journalism?
no; it was everything. away from home, away from everyone i had ever known.
i could be ME. and doggoneit, people liked me. ME, goddammit!!!
i made the best friends one could possibly hope for.
When i realized that i could truly be hapopy? when the five of us, whom had
never, outside of familial obligations, loved anyone in our lives, realized,
through caring for another, that we loved each other. We sat around, crying:
for four of us it was the first time in our lives we had ever felt emotion in
front of another human being. one of us had been suicidal and we had no idea
why. we flipped. it brought all of us together. he still has scars on his
hands. we were scared. we burst out into tears; the five of us hugged and
sat and talked and bonded and talked and were closer than anyone had ever been
we opened up for the first time we trusted somebody!!! brie and ian and i
said screw it! david wil understand and tossed down and gave up reading our
play for the day. mike, the epitome of a computer nerd, forwent his program.
for the first time we could let go our pain; we had similar horror stories
some were better off than otehrs; mike had loving supportive parents, unlike
the rest of us, but then again they had divorced, too. we sat their and loved
and in so doing were happy.
none of us really knew what happiness was until then
_happy_
when i came back at the end of the summer, my friends at school were like
what happend? youre so differnt? youre YOU? my bf of the time was shocked.
that following year, my seniior in hs, was one of my best. or thee best, i
suppose. when i walked out on my parents, i had a bunch of new friends, maybe
not as close as the d.c., but they were supposrtive. i was amazed; i was
shocked; what was happening? i wasnt happy perse, but i was content.
my friend pete says i base too much of my happiness on making other people
happy. i suppose hes right. it was when i was with these people and we loved
each other and i could give to them and they gave to me that i was happy.
so when these friendships, as friendships do, started drifting apart, we were
all dreadfully unhappy. but we were too young and inexperiebced to be able to
handle things properly; a stopped speaking to b who wasnt speaking to c but
d was, etc. playing off of each other.
but i wasnt miserable over it, i just wasnt happy. i was back to my closed
emotionless bitch self. except for with 2 people. mike and i would finish
each otehrs sentences we were so close. he was the only person who could cheer
me up and i felt better! we were inseparable. we were buddies. neitehr of us
trusted anyone else. we were just JDPPY being together. watching a movie.
listening to music ("D song... played on a solo saxophone...") we were just
filled with happiness being togetehr! we dreamed the impossible dream...
he was don quixote and i was sancho.
at that time, my bf was fucking a 14 year old. and he raped me. and another
one of the 5, to whom only 1 of the rest of us was speaking, called me drunk
off her ass at 2 am. i had not spoken a word to her in 6 mos. i still loved
her, but... the rest of my life suckewd. but i had mike and ian and we loved
each other. my happiest moment last year? the three of us getting our pictres
done with santa. (santa was a perv. he tried grabbing my ass.) then over
winterterm, i met this girl in my class. i wasnt close to her, but for the
first time in a while, i was in female company and not objecting. it was neat
to have a female friend to talk to, to gossip with, to discuss boys with, etc.
hadnt ever really had that. i was happy for 6 weeks. everything was great.
then she met mike. and informed me that because he was a spineless male, she
was gong to run his life. quote "fuck off bitch, he's mine." ?!?!?!?!? i never
even "wanted" him! he was my closest friend, for chrissake! he has since
renounced _everything_ he ever stood for. hes been thrown out of his house,
hes gone from a 3.8in the honors program to academic probation, living with
her, which to his catholic boy morals was hellbent, and no longer speaking to
me or anyone else because she said shed break up with him if he did.
in my life, he was the only person i was 100% comfortable showing my emotions
to. when things had gone too far, i closded up. closed up on the person who
kept me from total despair of the world; if someone as wonderful as he could
exist, then someday i'd be happy.
"There was a time when love was blind/Dnd the world was a song/and the song was
exciting/there was a time/then it all went wrong."
there are 4 moments in my life that stand out more than anything.
one was when mike and i, generally going by unspoken words, actually vocalized
the "i love you" and hugged andcried after our first fight. happy to the point
my chest was going to burst. "i had never considered our not being freinds"
was what he said then. 6 months later, we werent speaking. i stopped being me
i was too hurt. i went on the defensive. i became the opposite of anything i
had ever been; yes, some of it was me, but i was doing things (like drinking)
that i never had the inclination to do, and still actually hate. anything i
felt i hid and did the opposite. miserably unhappy. and when i made new
friends where i worked, they all thought of me as this confident, loving, flirt
which is fine; these were surface "partying" friends. the few who counted
knew me better. they saw me break down and cry (something that i had never
done previously unless with mike or ian or brie) when i got a phone call from
the asshole i was being fucked over by. they hugged me and let me cry. dt was
great as an ego-booster; if dt liked me for chrissake then maybe i WaS likable
maybe there WaS something to me. i was surface-happy, altho inside i was still
bleeding like hell. but i started to rebuild myself. i had dave and dt and
they were such wonderful friends. even now, despite the fact that i no longer
see dave every day, when i really need him, he comes through. and im
currently trying to think of ways to cheer him up.
but this led me to slowly be happy. bit by bit. then classes started
and i met wonderful people. who actually sought my company wow! maybe this
trend that dennis and derek had started in august was going to last! maybe
there WaS something in me to be happy. i loved these people instantly and even
fell in love. i was so happy, happoy as i had only been when with mike or my
brother brandon. happoy just BFING with these people.
but my other friends were miserable. dave was wretched. i was bickering with
ian incessantly, to the point where i swore at him and hung up on him. everyone
else was miserable and i was ytrying to help them and i lost trust in everyone
else and everyone gave up on me and, per usual, the happiness didnt last.
why should i be happy when everytime i find happiness i get hurt and lose
everything?
i have ian.
and, when my parents let me near him, i have my brother.
tehre is little else that makes me happy. my music. my poetryt; bith are
slowly coming back. its been almost a year now since mike and i started
fighting. almosyt a year since i have been truly myself. and i wont be happy
until i am, but whenever i am, i get hurt.
its a circle.
so simple ego-boosters and fake smiles do not help, do not combat 19 years of
absolute hell.
because the few people who ever "belived" in me have given up onb me. i see
the mortality of everything. even my best friend. excepot that he knpows me
well enough to understand why im like this. why get into a relationshiup? it
will never last. why get married? it wont last. why make new freiends? they
will soon disappear like the otehrs. the people here i once called "friends",
who made this place worth being at, arent worthy of the spit found on sidewalks
so why should i be happy
this, to me, is happiness.
and lack thereof.
--
Bethany "Bitty" Ramirez | "Someday we'll find it, the Rainbow Connection..."
"And right there the world suddenly got big. And it was a long time before I
could cut it down to where I could handle it." - Troy, in _Fences_
"A kiss is just a kiss... A sigh is just a sigh... As time goes by..."
Progressive Review
>
>What I don't understand is why you're so dissatisfied. You don't want
>to be happy. You're not, and you're taking steps to insure that you
>stay that way. You don't want everyone else to be happy. They're not,
>and you're not doing anything to change that. You don't want people to
>treat you decently in relationships. Neither your friends, nor your
>romantic interests do, and you're doing what you can to insure that that
>state of affairs continues. You don't want to do anything to change
>your life. You're not, you're making sure to perpetuate all of these
>things. That seems like enough to keep you occupied and satisfied with
>your level of misery.
>
"Low self esteem" is **not** the same as "not wanting to be happy".
There are many people (including readers of this net to whom you were
referring) who do not believe themselves _worthy_ of happiness, and
mistrust those who try to make them happy, assuming that they must have
an ulterior motive, since "nobody could *possibly* want me to be happy"
(low self esteem thing...)
But just because somebody sees themselves as miserable and not worth
happiness, doesn't mean that they don't *want* to be happy. They are
just having lots of trouble learning *how* to be happy, which is a much
greater task than just being happy itself.
--ben, who thinks he's figured out how to be happy, and is looking for
people to be happy _with_ :)