Bloody hormones and sensitivity
May. 4th, 2008 11:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trixtahWhile I don't think I'm particularly more grumpy at certain times of the month - frankly, who can tell? - the filters definitely wear a bit thinner, both incoming (in terms of being able to filter out stuff that isn't normally much of a big deal) and outgoing (while judging what and how to say something can be problematic at the best of times, let's just say that aspect is not enhanced).
I did a nice big rant to the CDL and the Bear the other day, about my dislike of the album Bat Out of Hell by Meatloaf. There are a couple of reasons for that dislike. One is that, sad to say, it's a class thing. Over-dramatic white trash emoting-via-screaming doesn't really give me warm fuzzies at the best of times. It reminds me of dire parties in smoky drafty garages, shitty loud music playing (at least predominantly Maori parties had better food and decent music), with a bunch of boozed-up men trying to out-macho each other, while their women gossip viciously on the margins, or attempt to outdo each other in swapping turgid tales of their life fuckups. There is a reason I'm mainly attracted to middle-middle or upper-middle class more-rational-than-me (yet sufficiently sensitive) educated types (not that the middle classes are not capable of being dramatic, but they express it less, hm, "messily", and I do duck the more out-there type).
I actually don't mind the track Heaven Can Wait, or the music from the track Bat Out of Hell. Although how anyone can listen without rolling their eyes at such lines as "You're the only thing in this whole world that's pure and good and right" or "And the last thing I see/ Is my heart, still beating .../ Breaking out of my body and flying away/ Like a bat out of hell." Oh, I know every word of this album, believe me.
But, you know, I feel that way about much mid-late 70's macho (although what's so macho or "hard" about a bunch of men screaming in falsetto has always been beyond me) rock. No, I have a special animus for that album because it reminds me of my stepfather... and that's been stirred around a bit subconsciously, as it turns out, by events in the news this past week.
The song I particularly dislike from that album is Paradise by the Dashboard Light. It's apparently supposed to be hilarious, but the tale of a woman pressuring a man into marriage (that he will "love her till the end of time") before she'll let him fuck her is fairly low on my list of humorous topics. And the penultimate lines "So now I'm waiting for the end of time to hurry up and arrive" certainly sums up my view on my mother's first marriage (I'd come along before she married, alas).
So, last week was all about the events in Austria, with that bastard who locked up his daughter for so many years to abuse her. She's only two years older than me, and I was 16 when she was jailed. There is all that rhetoric about incest and rape survivors, and I've never been comfortable with that terminology. What about those, like that poor woman, who have only "survived" in the physical sense? Maybe she'll be able to find some peace and happiness - I hope so - but no-one could possibly recover from that damage. Another thing about being a "survivor" is that it implies that this is something you will be defined by for the rest of your life. For someone like Elisabeth Fritzl, it will. But how many of us are so damaged that it's true?
However, when something like this hits the news, it stirs up something more visceral than the natural disgust and horror that one feels - it churns the muddy waters of what it feels like to be utterly helpless that normally lies at the bottom of your soul. It makes you turn over the rotting remnants of your own horrible memories. The memory of fear, as well as the more gross recollections. It makes you engage in a process of sickeningly comparing relative damage... and being fucking grateful that that level of abuse did not happen to you, and is never likely to. It makes you wonder just what the differences are between the PTSD caused by psychological warfare and that caused by the external wars, famines and "ethnic cleansings" that go on today. In this instance, "what about the children?" is a reasonable question to ask. What is the burden to society on all these fucked-up adults (perpetrators and victims) and those whose lives they have impacts on?
The calculus of victimhood is a useless thing to engage in. My abuse was not at the hands of a pedophile, and while dealing with someone who hated my existence and who occasionally thought of me as a convenient set of orifices - until, when I was 9 or 10, even he went too far for his "comfort" and never sexually touched me again - is nothing no-one should ever have to endure, the abuse wasn't personal. Once I found out he wasn't my actual father, I was relieved. Once my mother left him, I was free. At the age of 11, I didn't have to endure any more. I didn't have to make plans to escape once I could get a job. I didn't have to spend every waking hour possible away from the house or worry about bringing my friends to visit. Obviously, it's had an impact on my personality - warped childhoods have that effect - and I still get occasional twinges, like now. But I don't feel desperately damaged. However, I've had friends who had less overt physical abuse, but whose sexuality was mucked around with... and one of those still hasn't recovered.
So, yeah, this has been around in my subconscious this past week, and exacerbated by my lovely hormones. I annoy myself by being tweaked by such an extreme situation that I personally experienced only the slightest amount of. But then what I experienced should not be experienced by anyone. What Elizabeth Fritzl has borne, while yet seemingly retaining loving concern for her children, is beyond anything that I can say. But I hope she can come to savour her freedom. And I hope I can learn to forgive my own weakness. One day.
Also, it'd be nice to learn to recognise what stirs up rant-prone behaviour before going into rant mode, or having to put up with several nights of horrible dreams before having a light-bulb moment. Heh. At least I get there eventually, at sufficiently frequent intervals.
And thank god that I can vent here when I figure it out... I might actually get some work done now I'm no longer quite so much in the Slough of Despond.
I did a nice big rant to the CDL and the Bear the other day, about my dislike of the album Bat Out of Hell by Meatloaf. There are a couple of reasons for that dislike. One is that, sad to say, it's a class thing. Over-dramatic white trash emoting-via-screaming doesn't really give me warm fuzzies at the best of times. It reminds me of dire parties in smoky drafty garages, shitty loud music playing (at least predominantly Maori parties had better food and decent music), with a bunch of boozed-up men trying to out-macho each other, while their women gossip viciously on the margins, or attempt to outdo each other in swapping turgid tales of their life fuckups. There is a reason I'm mainly attracted to middle-middle or upper-middle class more-rational-than-me (yet sufficiently sensitive) educated types (not that the middle classes are not capable of being dramatic, but they express it less, hm, "messily", and I do duck the more out-there type).
I actually don't mind the track Heaven Can Wait, or the music from the track Bat Out of Hell. Although how anyone can listen without rolling their eyes at such lines as "You're the only thing in this whole world that's pure and good and right" or "And the last thing I see/ Is my heart, still beating .../ Breaking out of my body and flying away/ Like a bat out of hell." Oh, I know every word of this album, believe me.
But, you know, I feel that way about much mid-late 70's macho (although what's so macho or "hard" about a bunch of men screaming in falsetto has always been beyond me) rock. No, I have a special animus for that album because it reminds me of my stepfather... and that's been stirred around a bit subconsciously, as it turns out, by events in the news this past week.
The song I particularly dislike from that album is Paradise by the Dashboard Light. It's apparently supposed to be hilarious, but the tale of a woman pressuring a man into marriage (that he will "love her till the end of time") before she'll let him fuck her is fairly low on my list of humorous topics. And the penultimate lines "So now I'm waiting for the end of time to hurry up and arrive" certainly sums up my view on my mother's first marriage (I'd come along before she married, alas).
So, last week was all about the events in Austria, with that bastard who locked up his daughter for so many years to abuse her. She's only two years older than me, and I was 16 when she was jailed. There is all that rhetoric about incest and rape survivors, and I've never been comfortable with that terminology. What about those, like that poor woman, who have only "survived" in the physical sense? Maybe she'll be able to find some peace and happiness - I hope so - but no-one could possibly recover from that damage. Another thing about being a "survivor" is that it implies that this is something you will be defined by for the rest of your life. For someone like Elisabeth Fritzl, it will. But how many of us are so damaged that it's true?
However, when something like this hits the news, it stirs up something more visceral than the natural disgust and horror that one feels - it churns the muddy waters of what it feels like to be utterly helpless that normally lies at the bottom of your soul. It makes you turn over the rotting remnants of your own horrible memories. The memory of fear, as well as the more gross recollections. It makes you engage in a process of sickeningly comparing relative damage... and being fucking grateful that that level of abuse did not happen to you, and is never likely to. It makes you wonder just what the differences are between the PTSD caused by psychological warfare and that caused by the external wars, famines and "ethnic cleansings" that go on today. In this instance, "what about the children?" is a reasonable question to ask. What is the burden to society on all these fucked-up adults (perpetrators and victims) and those whose lives they have impacts on?
The calculus of victimhood is a useless thing to engage in. My abuse was not at the hands of a pedophile, and while dealing with someone who hated my existence and who occasionally thought of me as a convenient set of orifices - until, when I was 9 or 10, even he went too far for his "comfort" and never sexually touched me again - is nothing no-one should ever have to endure, the abuse wasn't personal. Once I found out he wasn't my actual father, I was relieved. Once my mother left him, I was free. At the age of 11, I didn't have to endure any more. I didn't have to make plans to escape once I could get a job. I didn't have to spend every waking hour possible away from the house or worry about bringing my friends to visit. Obviously, it's had an impact on my personality - warped childhoods have that effect - and I still get occasional twinges, like now. But I don't feel desperately damaged. However, I've had friends who had less overt physical abuse, but whose sexuality was mucked around with... and one of those still hasn't recovered.
So, yeah, this has been around in my subconscious this past week, and exacerbated by my lovely hormones. I annoy myself by being tweaked by such an extreme situation that I personally experienced only the slightest amount of. But then what I experienced should not be experienced by anyone. What Elizabeth Fritzl has borne, while yet seemingly retaining loving concern for her children, is beyond anything that I can say. But I hope she can come to savour her freedom. And I hope I can learn to forgive my own weakness. One day.
Also, it'd be nice to learn to recognise what stirs up rant-prone behaviour before going into rant mode, or having to put up with several nights of horrible dreams before having a light-bulb moment. Heh. At least I get there eventually, at sufficiently frequent intervals.
And thank god that I can vent here when I figure it out... I might actually get some work done now I'm no longer quite so much in the Slough of Despond.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-05 12:30 pm (UTC)I've been disgusted and appalled by the events in Austria, but have not felt triggered by them. Erm, that I *know*.
I have my own, other, triggers (which I demonstrated yesterday, alas).
I very sorry you have yours, that you lived through stuff that created them.
Suckage. Grrr.