This morning I went to my 'group'. In reality it's a conscious raising group to deal with anxiety and be able to be a single, strong, superhero in a random and cruel world. Our group therapist calls it a "stress management group". Call it what you will, does not matter. What matters is that I need it!
Besides me, everyone in the group is on the heroin withdraw program (the methadone clinic patients). All are unique and sensitive (highly so) good people who are bonding to support each other as if we were family. We talk about everything, even the things that make us vulnerable, to each other; and we are strangers.
Today we had a talk about the 'need' to have people in our lives. Sometimes when you speak so long openly things come out that are not on the four front of our thinking. I blurted out that people are like drugs. We don't need them for our happiness. They are an addiction.
A woman objected, saying that without relationships it would be like the novel "On Waldon Pond". I suppressed blurting out that his mother did his laundry while he wrote that entire novel.
Do we need people to be happy? And what if their happiness or anger makes us act accordingly. I don't like being a slave to anyone, any drug, or any negative or positive emotion. But I am addicted to the idea of people being some cure. I admit this even though I don't want people's lives to be my own.
I told the group that I enrolled to be strong myself so that I don't need anyone but myself. There is no underlying blueprint that will make life certain and fair. It's a throw of the dice.
I lied when I said I did not need anyone, or hope to work up to the point of never needing anyone. The heart was meant to love (thank you Professor Zimmerman for that lecture.) I live for people. I watch them from afar. I listen. I react to them. I don't understand them. But they have their moments of cutting out the bullshit and actually expressing good stuff.
My good, if not best friend (at one point) talked to me for a while on the phone yesterday and she make a comment that sickened me. She said that she hired a black man and, of course (because he was black) he quickly quit the job. Never mind that almost ten employees (including me) quickly left. Why did she have to say that? But I can not eliminate her from my life. She can make a fairy house out of bark. She has loved me more then myself. She once cried when she saw a chicken on the highway because she knew it would get crushed by a passing car. But yet she said that. My point is that people- everyone- are too complex to sum up and cut out or worship. They keep me going. The good ones mostly.
Besides me, everyone in the group is on the heroin withdraw program (the methadone clinic patients). All are unique and sensitive (highly so) good people who are bonding to support each other as if we were family. We talk about everything, even the things that make us vulnerable, to each other; and we are strangers.
Today we had a talk about the 'need' to have people in our lives. Sometimes when you speak so long openly things come out that are not on the four front of our thinking. I blurted out that people are like drugs. We don't need them for our happiness. They are an addiction.
A woman objected, saying that without relationships it would be like the novel "On Waldon Pond". I suppressed blurting out that his mother did his laundry while he wrote that entire novel.
Do we need people to be happy? And what if their happiness or anger makes us act accordingly. I don't like being a slave to anyone, any drug, or any negative or positive emotion. But I am addicted to the idea of people being some cure. I admit this even though I don't want people's lives to be my own.
I told the group that I enrolled to be strong myself so that I don't need anyone but myself. There is no underlying blueprint that will make life certain and fair. It's a throw of the dice.
I lied when I said I did not need anyone, or hope to work up to the point of never needing anyone. The heart was meant to love (thank you Professor Zimmerman for that lecture.) I live for people. I watch them from afar. I listen. I react to them. I don't understand them. But they have their moments of cutting out the bullshit and actually expressing good stuff.
My good, if not best friend (at one point) talked to me for a while on the phone yesterday and she make a comment that sickened me. She said that she hired a black man and, of course (because he was black) he quickly quit the job. Never mind that almost ten employees (including me) quickly left. Why did she have to say that? But I can not eliminate her from my life. She can make a fairy house out of bark. She has loved me more then myself. She once cried when she saw a chicken on the highway because she knew it would get crushed by a passing car. But yet she said that. My point is that people- everyone- are too complex to sum up and cut out or worship. They keep me going. The good ones mostly.
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