Aug 4

August 4

(this first story is actually a combination of stories with more than one person, plus some fiction)

Got some good hugs the other day. It was so nice. She emailed me and said she had been reading my site and had been thinking about me. I hadn't heard from her in over two years. She read how lonely I was feeling and how much I wanted some help. I felt really excited so I emailed her right back. She asked me if I had MSN, which I do, so I added her to my friends list. When I didn't get an email back for a few days, I wonderer why. Then we were both online on night. I said, "Hi Stranger." She said, "Who's this?" because my screen name was something generic that night. I teased her a little and didn't let her know it was me. She kept begging me to tell her so finally I said, "Are you feeling frustrated?" She says, "Yes. Very!" I then said, "How frustrated from 0-10?" lol. She knew instantly it was me and I could tell by her reaction she was happy to be talking to me. She said she never got my email or she would have written back. Well, to shorten this story, we got together a few days later at her place in Sydney and it was really, really nice.

When we first met we instantly connected. She was studying psychology and we had a lot to talk about. She was still idealistic and wanting to make a difference in the world. She was open to my ideas, in fact was really supportive of the. We talked for hours by the fireplace in a backpackers hostel. She was with a group and they kept trying to get her to stop talking to me and do things with them, or go to bed since they had to get up early in the morning. They were making a lot of excuses to try to convince her to stop talking, but she stayed till we mutually agreed to say goodnight. The next morning I asked her how she felt about our talk. I asked her to give me one feeling word. She looked she was afraid to tell me how she really felt. Seeing this, I started to feel afraid she didn't want to hurt my feelings. I started to joke her to lighten things up. I said something like, "Bored? Guilty? Passionate?" She smiled and said, "Well, it was more like passionate."

Of course this is the answer I wanted to hear, but I honestly didn't expect it. The year or two at uni had already affected her spontaneity and stiffled her emotions, making her sound unnaturally "rational" as we talked the night before, so I couldn't tell how she really felt about me. We didn't have much time to talk then because she had gotten up late and the group ready to go and was hassling her about being late. She told me later they were trying to protect her from me, which I pretty much suspected. I am used to this. Whenver I have a really good conversation with someone much younger than, most people over the age of about 14 tend to get scared. I am trying to accept that this is just the way things are right now in cultures where this happens, and accept that it is a result of the general paranoia which is only getting worse, unfortunately. I do resent being constantly robbed from opportunities for friendships, good conversation, hugs and intimacy simply because of my age. I often feel discriminated against because of it. Not many people look at the laws which prohibit someone like me from having a relationship with someone like Sarah as age discrimination, but to me that is one way of looking at it. Recently, by the way, Sarah told her friend to tell some guy she met at a rock concert that she would give him oral sex, or "head" as she and her friend call it, if he drove up to see her. He is 19, so this would be illegal, even if she voluntarily did it. He said, "That is corruption. You are just 14." Her friend, also 14, wrote back, "No, that is seduction." The people who are so worried about me "corrupting" Sarah might feel better now that she feels hurt by me showing interest in someone else. She said she does't want me to help her anymore and she can't even stay my best friend because it hurts too much. So I am seeing this is one practical problem with trying to help someone and then getting romantically involved with them. The reason I first started talking to Sarah online was because of her diary entry that said, "Can someone please help me." Now she doesn't want my help. She wants to be treated more as an equal. She also said she doesn't want my pity. I said something like I am very afraid she is going to push away the people she most wants to be close to, just as I did in my life. I want Sarah to have a better life than I did. I've told her this. But she just wants to be with me. Or that is what she has been saying. Now she seems to want to go to rock concerts and do drugs and have sex with people who will come help save her from her lonliness. But what else can she do? Her father won't let her come meet me. He would rather she do drugs, cut herself, have phone sex, cyber sex, spend hours masturbating alone, and offer sex to 19 year olds than have any kind of relationship with someone who really loves her and cares about her. He doesn't mind giving her 75 dollars to go to a rock concert where she is likely to get injured in the mosh pit, but he won't spend 10 dollars to get her a phone card so she can call me when she is crying because of the way he treats her, as she did the other night, using my phone card. She is being forced to be a baby sitter for her younger sister. She has no money of her own and no way to get any or her independence as long as she can't work. She wanted to spend the night at her friend's house, but he wanted her home so she could be there to baby sit her younger sister. She said she was sick of being stuck at home. He shouted back, "Well what do you want me to do about it?" She creid for about 5 minutes when she called. I wished I could be there to give her a hug, to get her out of there or to help him see what he has created. But he has threanted to have me arrested if I see her, so I have just stayed away. Sarah has learned to attck him and of course he gets defensive. He attacks her back, so she has learned to defend herself. She has changed so much since I met her at 11 and a half. She has really been emotionally poisioned. I have done everything I know to do to help stop this process, but it hasn't been enough. There is no one I have loved as unconditionally as Sarah. Through everything I have kept loving her. Now she feels rejected by me because I want to have a real relationship and I want to get real hugs instead just electronic ones over the Internet.

So back to the person who Sarah feels jealous of, who I will call Marni because she has asked me not to use her real name. Before Marni left the hostel, she gave a memorably affectionate -- and even seductive -- hug, along with her address and phone number. She said she wanted to see me again. I was super excited. For years I have dreamd of finding someone like her. About a week later I wrote to her and said I was going to Sydney. I sounded too needy and impatient in the letter though, espcially since she was dating someone else and believed that she needed to stay in school and finish her degree. I offered to support her if she came and worked with me and travelled with me. Her parents were also pressuring her to finish school, and she was still living with them even though she hated it. She didn't have the money to live on her own and her boyfriend has less than she did. In fact she was helping support him and his drug use.

Anyhow, it was two years later that I heard from her again. I can't remember myself if I have said that or not already, and "can't be bothered" as the pommies and ozzies say, to go back and check. She had broken up with her boyfriend and we started spending time together. Then I left for Canada and we didn't really keep in touch. I saw her once this year, but very briefly and we mostly argued about counseling theories. She is working in a government mental healthy center and is starting to get defensive about her psychololgy degree and the ways they do things at the center. She really felt hurt and defensive when I told her that Sarah was a better listener than she was at 14 with no psychology degree. I didn't say it to hurt her though, I only said it because it was true. Marni has gotten very analytical and clinical. She has gotten "professional." She has always been a people pleaser. Or she has tried to be. She never felt approved of enough by her mother or father, so she sought approval from others in the form of getting good grades in school, impressing her professors with her intellectual abilities and impressing her partners with her sexual skills. Now she is seeking approval from her peers in the mental health profession. Professionals generally don't like me and the feeling is mutual, so Marni feels torn. In some ways she wants to get away from them and their offices in the city and come live with me in the woods, but she like having money -- it gives her a sense of power and control. Two things she never felt when she was growing up. Her parents are both very controlling I have met them both and spent time at their house. They don't have a good relationship, which is hardly surprising. The father was having an affair for years. They seperated for a time and are not back together but constanly hurting each other. The years of resentment fill their expensive, beautiful house in the suburbs with a lethal toxic atmosphere. He is a military man, which tells you a little about his need for control and his tolerance for freedom and free thinking. It is funny in fact, to think of how people who don't give their children freedom are willing to kill people and die so people like their children can be free. I can name you person after person that I have met with serious emotional problems whose parents were in the miltary. It is right up their with the church for creating dysfunctional familes. A religious military person is an especially scary person. Even scarier is a highly educated religious military person. There is little chance of having a conversation with someone like this, or of them listening to any new ideas from their own children.

Something just reminded me of Sarah, and how she attacked me for paying 25 dollars on match.com so I could meet someone in real life. I feel hurt by her attack and I feel a little hurtful. I think, "She criticizes me for doing this while she is saying she loves me and wants to have my children, then offers someone sex to come see her." Sarah really did love each other once. But because she has been forced to live in an emotionally toxic home in an emotionally toxic culture, and becuse I was also raised in the same cuture and a family not so different than hers, we are starting to feel hurtful, resentful, unforgiving, judgmental etc. towards each other. Sarah used to be one of the most, if not the most, forgiving, empathetic, compassionate people I know. I have cried and cried over feeling powerless to stop what is happening to her. I have spent my time energy and money trying to prevent exactly I see happening. I will probably never be able to care about anyone as much as I cared about her. I was so drained by it. She calls me "cold" now, but I have had to distance myself from her for my own survival. She was surprised when I told her it was killing me.

I am getting very sleepy now. It is six fifteen in the morning. I have been up since around three. Here are some notes I made. -also, I have a train to catch at 8 thirty.

staff will fill the woodbox once each evening.
Additional loads are available for $6.
Please ensure gaurd is kept in front of fire.

glued thermostat control on heaters
heat for hallways, common rooms is automatically turned down at night.

(people are normally sleep.. - but I am not normal. Normal is unehealthy, normal is deadly, normal is dangerous)

Normal is dangerous.

replaced all the locks on the rooms to make them all the same.
replaced all the locks on the storage closets.

he feels more comfortable with everything being the same. values money. like me but when do u stop? what is the emotional value of a fireplace? it was too cold in there to work tonight. no wood left. can't wake up "Staff" (used to be Glen and Lee) to ask for more wood at three a.m.

they used to let me stay in the office - now they have a manager, he wouldn't let me use the office so i could hook up my laptop. glen and lee used to give me the key. i managed the hostel while they were out of town once. now i can't use the office past eight thirty. but they did let me go to the house. they have been very nice to me. always offered me something to eat, drink. i used to want to help them out volunatarily, but beign told by the "Staff" that i couldn't use the office tonight was very disheartening.

guests used to be able to receive phone calls at the hostel.
now they have a private phone that is more expensive - they make money from it.
windows in offices and trains don't open

do we have more freedom or less?

---

I have school tomorrow - I have a lot to do --.more important to do her school work than write down how she feels. what her mother says to her. what her father says.

Someday I hope I will meet someone who puts a higher value on helping people than doing her school work.

Our intellectual intelligence has (led to power to kill but not ability to stop us from killing)

To younger sister:

no, i didn't!
No, I am not!

I already did!

--
expression - restores your faith.

The other night around 1 A.M. I was driving on a small country road. I couldn't remember the last time I saw another car. It was pitch dark out except for the light from my headlights.

For a few days I was feeling blissful. Then I slowly realized she wasn't completely through with the old boyfriend.

s hurt, doesnt want to hear abiout m and i

want her 4 friend

sleepy..

m doesnt say bye, xxoo - just disconnects. feel abandoned, afraid, insecure needy

dream about al, andy.

andy atacking me sayin "i am sick o u attackin me, why donj't u get off ur lazy ass and go clean ur fucking room. al in the room. starts walking out, i want him to stay so i can say what i need to say to andy. i say to al as he is tryin to get away "u know one of these days i am just going to fucking explode." al keeps walking aayway, towards his room. he cuts me off. doesn't want to hear it or be a part of it. says firm, gruffly, disapprovingly "nope"

i wake up.

i realize they never wanted to hear from me. i always kept quiet while they all lectured to me, judged me criticized me, advicsed me. never fought back. never knew how i felt. had no feeling words. once had dream about andy. next day i told him i felt mocked, he said, well u should. am so fucking sick of them all. they poisoned me and no one will, admit it. they are all in denial. it is so sick.

i have been away for years, and still i have this dream tonight. i want to get my friends out. almost no one understands how serious this is. it is killing them. they will hurt and kill others. vote to kill and punish. they will. have broken relationships. waste money and time on relationships. even marni, at 23 is not seperated from her family. she goes over there all the time. gets sucked into their dramas. doesn't want to leave sydney so she can be close to them. feels threatened by my writing and ideas. tells me i should do this and shouldnt do that and she should do this and shouldn't do that and cant do this and has to do that. her years of school have hurt her, not helped her. she was more beautiful, less materialistic at 19. more empathetic. less defensive, more open. now she has to defend the system, because she is part of it. got defensive when i told her about the girl i met in bathurst. who works in the same departement in another office. and didn't have a clue what was really happening inside families, never did any thinking on her own about it. just swallows whatever is in the books and she gets rewarded for regurgitating. here are my notes from the day i met her..

Convo with counselor in bathurst cafeteria

Where do you think the disorders come from.

She crossed her arms, started getting red in the face... Laughed, smiled nervously.

A lot of places. Sometimes it just comes out of nowhere.

Sometimes they develop starvation syndrome.

What is that exactly?

Laughes nervously again - I don't know specifically... I really couldn't say.

Do you see any patterns in the families they come from?

We don't really ask them about their families. For those with anorexia: we have them eat with us and show them they won't gain ten kilos like they think the will.

She laughs at them. Then says judgmentally "They run their parents instead of the other way around. Their parents can't make them eat."

I think. "So you want parents to force their kids to eat? This will help fill their emotional needs? They probably have the "eating disorder" because their parents are too controlling already. Food is one thing they have some control over.

Why are you getting your advanced degree?

To make more money.

What courses are you taking. "I don't know. I am just here for two weeks. The rest is correspondence."

so yeah... as people seem to say now.

i want to sleep next to someone who isn't threatend by my ideas. i will lay down close my eyes and dream of meeting this person one day and not being alone another night.

closes eyes, shuts compuyer, cones back totype "sarah doesnt ..dont want 2 give up an her" smiles

alarm goes off seven fifty five now. still sleepy. was thinking - want to find a teen, parent who will work with me to tell me what is really happening at home each day. have teen write it, parent verify it. would like to get paid fot that! lol. is there any parent who would agree to it? what if social services did that?????

then they could really make a difference. how hard would that be? why do i have to think of this stuff? when the people with phd's cant? *feels resentful, judgemntal*

so simple. teen keeps journal. or hell just have them turn on a tape recorder. or video. let's start using technology to really do something useful instead of spreading american bullshit around the world. has anyone ANYONE, ever thought of analyzing seinfield, dawsons creek for how many labels they use, how much sarcasm? why is homer simpson so funny? sarcasm? sarcasm is resentment. why can't we teach feeling words? Start addressing the causes of resentment. i don't want sarah to be even more resentful, sarcastic - like micheal moore is - i want her to really be powerful. i want her to do something useful with her emotional intelligence. not destroy herself and her relationships. someone, please help her get out of there!!!!!!!!!

starting to look forward to the trip. after spending the night with marni i didn't really want to leave australia. i thought of trying to extend my visa. but after last night i feel more ready to travel. do something differnt, meet new people. be more productive. find someone who values me enough to take some risks. or someone who trusts their feelings and doesn't listen to the voices of authority. marni told me she regretted not coming with me three years ago. she said she thought she had to stay in school and finish her education. then she added in parentheses - even though i would have learned more from you. Marni has lived at home her whole life. She is 23 now. She sometimes criticizes her parents and sometimes defends them. I never defend my mother. If Sarah ever starts defending her father it will probably be the final nail in the coffin of our friendship. Would a rape victim defend the rapist? Before the acknowleding that she was raped and seriously hurt. Saran is now saying that I am hurting her. She says her hurt is not related to her environment. So she will stop looking for any evidence that Mike has made it virtually impossible for her to have a healthy relationship. She will start blaming the people she dates. She will end up like Colette if nothing changes. But I think she is ahead of Colette. More unhealthy at an earlier age. She said yesterday she wanted to go to the Ozzie Osborn contest and get kicked in the mosh pit and have some bones broken. I asked her why and she said so she can prove she has been there. She wants to feel physical pain to distract her from the emotional pain. She will probably get tired of me writing about her like this. She will probably stop talking to me. That is the risk I take. I am always taking risks. I would rather be aloine than keep my mouth shut. If anyone is so afraid of the truth, they aren't the right person for me. Marni doesn't want me talking about her family on here either.

just talked to a ten year old. wow. wow. wow. how smart she was. i started talking to her because she had her feet on the seats across from her, just below the sign saying not to do that. lol. i joked about it and told her i do the same thing and that a lot of old people sometimes don't like it. she was so precious. she started talking about school and told how she was in the OC class or something. the opportunity class. i said is that a class for smart people. she said yes. i said i figured bcause she looked smart, which she did. i have always had a knack for looking at someone and seeing how smart they are. i am afraid that sounds judgmental or arrogant, but i believe i do. as she talked you could see her thinking. you could see her brow wrinkle as she tried to remember something or find the right word. wow. she just talked and talked. the more she talked the better she felt. after she got done telling me about the environment contests

contests, awards, "we won the behavior award"

we only got one wrong.out of 500 schools there were only seventy five that got as many right as we did.

when i first asked her about her classes i noticed she smiled when she said "grammar" - I thought she might have smiled because she liked it.

She said her family was from croatia and dad fought in the war. she said their home was destroyed so they broke into another home to live for a while. she said they came to australia when she was 2 and they only had 200 dollars with them. they had a relative here that helped them come over. i almost wanted to cry while she was talking. she was smiling though. she was so happy to have someone to talk to. she just literally talked non-stop. it was probably the longest she had been able to talk non-interruped ever in her life. she reminded me of the girl on the bus in south africa.

i was hoping to get her email address and keep in touch with her. i wanted to follow her life and see what became of her. she said she wanted to either be a lawyer or a professor when she grew up. i told her she seemed pretty grown up to me already and she liked hearing that. she was so adorable. impossible not to like. i could have talked with her for hours but her stop came and she

the competion had to do with solving an eco myster. they had to find out who was the victim, who was the viillian what was the cause, what was the issue. she talked about how they got information each week from a website she said "the only thing we got wrong was the issue."

i wanted to ask her so many questions. - what she thought about hitting children, how she would change school if she could.

i want to be able to influence people like that - influence their teachers and parents.

a very unhealthy family and their friend comes in and sits where the young genious was.

"i''ll smash that big nose of hers"

now they are telling racist jokes.the older boy finally says something

teenager daughter to youngest boy in harsh tone: Sit over there with mum. Do this do that.

Boy: Mum can i have so and so. No! Cuz you'll lose it. She said no in a very cutting way something like "Neh'-o"

a sliver ring on all four fingers and on her thumb, and three on her other hand. a piercing under her lip. the teen daughter has dirty looking bleached hair.

mummy, mummy, mummy - she ignores him and keeps reading text messages on her mobile phone to her friend. On the back of the phone there is a sticker that says Jim Beam.

he starts hitting her to get attention and she snaps, Stop it and takes something out of his hand.

why does't he send me a message? cuz u don't text back.

the friend has a piercing in her nose, under her lip, on her ear and on both eybrows. now they are talking about how someone they knew tried to run over a fox.

now they are talking about someone they are calling a "spoiled little brat"

---

decided to hop off the train near the university of W. sydney. i felt that feeling of freedom which i love when traveling. to be able to quickly, spontaneously impulsively * which DG would say means I have low ei, but makes me happy more often than not when I follow my impulses when traveling - actually the main time my impulses get me in trouble is in relationships - this is probably because i learned destructive habbits and am emotionally starved and desperate - desperation would lead to impusliveness I would imagine. all of this is natural. a natural reaction to my environment and trying to meed my natural needs. because i have never felt rejected by a place as i have been by people, following my impulses seems to work quite well.

asked some guy how to get to the uni. he showed me and said it was about a ten minute walk. is said it would be nice if there was a station that would stop at the uni. he looked at me without knowing what to say, as if he had never questioned anything in his life or thought of how life could be improved and even was judging me for not accepting the status quo. then i tried again to get a conversationg going or a more alive response out of him. (and not wanting to sound too judgmental myself, he was asian and looked like he was probably studing computers) so i said, "it must be a pain when it is raining." he responded dryly, "that is why you carry an umbrella." lol. I said yeah, thinking to myself "I don't even own a f***ing umbrella! lol. blog i wish i could travel with sarah. she thinks everything i do and say like that is funny. i don't know if marni would. she is a lot more conservative, rule following, rigid, unfree. sarah is a free spirit. i can't help but wonder what she would be like know in a family that gave her the emotional support she needed and told her how beautiful, special and precious she is. she would probably be the leader of the state or national student atheist club.

went into the mall at mcarthur for a while. saw some ladies paying someone else to "do" their nails. i almost want to cry. how can we be so technologically advanced and still have people who would pay someone else to cut, sand, paint, whatever their fingernails? why haven't we learned by now to teach what is really important in life?

am sitting in the uni cafeteria now. looking at the students. feeling kind of lonely thinking about marni and sarah. wondering who would be more fun to travel with, who i would get along the best with. i am kind of glad marni isn't as possesive, obsessive, jealous, needy etc as many females are. while i would prefer to travel with her, i feel free to do pretty much whatever i want without hurting her, or rather, without worring about her feeling hurt because of her own insecurities more than by anything i do or don't do. sarah is starting to say that i hurt her now. she isn't saying she feels hurt. but there is no point in debating with her or trying to teach her. everything i say or do now seems to hurt. she has wanted to be with me for so long. she says i am losing her. i kind of laugh. we have never even met. she wants me to be her boyfriend so badly. i can't blame her. we really have gotten along well considering everything. we have laughed and cried together for almost three years. longer than i was even married. both times added together!

maybe i should just try to find people to travel with for a while. who want to learn from me. i feel sad that sarah doesn't want my help anymore. well she never really wanted me to teach her things. she just wanted me to accept her, then to love her. so maybe i will stop trying to "help" her. maybe I will stop telling her what I am afraid of. but it makes my eyes start to water to think of that. it is so hard to watch what is happening and be so powerless. i am so afraid it is too late. what will her life be like? how many heartbreaks? how much pain will she be able to stand? how many people will she hurt? one day I said something about her next "victim." I read something like codependents don't take partners, they take victims."

looking at how some of the females worry so much about their hair and make up and jewelry. one is wearing such tight jeans i think they must be pretty hard to even get into. she also looks like she shaved her eyebrows and drew them in.

i see someone that reminds me of anushka. haven't thought of her in a long time. came to my "university club" that i started in florida. where i met kim. and almost de-virginated her. lol. the last time i heard from her she was going to stop working with kids and study massage. and her parents were going to open up a pet day care. *laughs and shakes head* what can u say to someone when they write something like that to you? her parents had a lot of money. lived in big surburban house like marni's.

on the way over here i talked to someone from fiji. she is studying law. asked what kind of law she was intersted in. criminal. i said do you want to defend them or prosecute them. she said defend them. i laughed and said why, then i added, i might need you some day, i am always breaking the rules.

Now in Singapore...

went for a walk.

saw a machine that puts your umbrella in a plastic bag! when u come inside the store you push your foot on this pedal. It looked a little like one of those shoe shining machines, in fact. But then the machine brings out a long thin plastic bag. then you put your umbrella in so it doesn't drip on the floor

food court was fun. so many differnt things. prices even i could afford! had several different snacks

went into hotel intercontiental for some fun. got map and wandered around. got a pencil and note pad! lol. somehow ended up in the basement with the laundry room the staff cafeteria etc. lol

lots of shoe stores around here. women's shoes mostly. way way way too many varities.

---

slept for a while - woke up ta (thinking about ) m. realised that it is very hard to think about someone else's feelings when you are afraid.