• purrrkitten said on Dec 14, 2006....

  That's a hard one! Some things that cause deep wounds are things that you cannot avoid or fix because you aren't responsible for what happened. ie. child abuse or rape.

  It is true that many of our wounds (at least as adults) come from choices we make and ways we interpret our experiences in life. That's why it takes so much work to change our worldviews to fix those things that cause us to choose badly. In my experience, choosing badly tends to bring on more wounds...  :-)

• the_infernal_optimist said on Dec 14, 2006....

  Absolutely.

• maemae said on Dec 14, 2006....

  Yes.  No one is as critical of me, as me.
  It's a compulsion. :\

• silverwhisper said on Dec 14, 2006....

  i keep encountering the truth of this myself.
  
  ed

• purrrkitten said on Dec 14, 2006....

  I tend to harder and far less forgiving of myself than of anyone else. It's a very hard habit to break...

• secretlife said on Dec 14, 2006....

  True.  I always loved T/F questions.

• mobil said on Dec 14, 2006....

  No doubt about it, I mean  TRUE !

• moonriver said on Dec 14, 2006....

  in my experience, definitely not. i can run up the top three personal pains that wracked my life one time or another in the past 10 years. in all three cases, i was fucked big-time, really big-time, by friends that i trusted. i know i'm partly to blame for being too trusting, but not on the level of self-infliction.

  but you're right in another sense: the most grievous wounds that refuse to heal, despite the balm of passing time and changed perspectives, are still there because the victim doesn't want them to heal. in my case, i'm 2/3 healed. the last one still "hurts so good" :-)

   

• carmachu said on Dec 14, 2006....

  No, the most grevious wounds arent the self inflicted ones here....

• Blindsided_by_Life said on Dec 14, 2006....

  Self negativity is defenitly a big issue with me but it's not entirely me making these wounds but more of people sparking the negativity in my mind and me picking it apart, and taking it past what was meant.

• MissMimi said on Dec 14, 2006....

  Yes

• Lioness said on Dec 14, 2006....

  Yes, in my case, it is true. 

• lioneljay said on Dec 14, 2006....

  I guess it depends on how far out you want to go to define "self-inflicted." I don't see cancer as being self inflicted (aside from the obvious with smoking-related forms or melanomas traceable to excessive sunbathing), for example. If my spouse were to die suddenly, would that be self-inflicted because the pain was due to having chosen to love her?
  
  It's easy to look around and see numerous problems that people bring upon themselves, but frankly I think that the worst are those that arrive swiftly with no warning and no possible connection with your choices or actions. It's just that when we make mistakes and cause major problems, our guilt exacerbates the situation.
  

• Mamie said on Dec 14, 2006....

  Ed, I have to say yes to this one...because no matter what the wound...it seems it is ALWAYS what we make of it that leaves the deepest cut. I hate being responsible for that sometimes. What's up? You beating yourself up about something?

• writerspirit said on Dec 14, 2006....

  Mostly True!
  Partially False. Ambiguous, I know.

• peedee said on Dec 14, 2006....

  "AS U SOW, SO SHALL U  REAP" All wounds are self inflicted SW.

• moonriver said on Dec 15, 2006....

  peedee, in a poetic or karmic sense, maybe... but i tremble to think of the practical implications. (judge: "is the jury's verdict in?" juror: "yes your honor. the defendant is guilty beyond reasonable doubt of inflicting the most grievous wounds upon himself." judge nods knowingly: "as it always must be, as it always must be...") just kidding.
  
  

• Alyss said on Dec 15, 2006....

  It depends...

• MissMimi said on Dec 15, 2006....

  I've been thinking about what LJ said. He's right. Sometimes we are dealt body blows by forces we can't control. Senseless tragedies happen to good people all the time.

  
  

  I was thinking more that for me the longer lasting psychological wounds that are lifelong are many times caused by me. Who better than me knows where my weakest spots are?

• soulreaver said on Dec 15, 2006....

  if you're a psycho, yes...

• silverwhisper said on Dec 15, 2006....

  purrkitten: while that's sometimes true, i agree, but the ones not self-inflicted at least you don't have the opportunity to torture yourself about a bad decision.
  
  infernal, bloc, mobil, lioness: short, sweet and i agree.
  
  maemae: heh...i think i may share that compulsion.
  
  SL: oddly, i've always resented T/F questions. but then again, i'm a very opinionated sort who absolutely can't STFU. :>
  
  moon: bingo, we keep picking at them, like a scab over a wound.
  
  carmachu: then you, sir, are fortunate in a way.
  
  blindsided: welcome to my blog and thank you for visiting! good point re: other people, but wouldn't you agree that in some measure, people's words have only the power that we choose to accord them?
  
  LJ: as i touched on in my reply to moon, yes, it's us that set the conditions under which such a wound heals. superb point re: unexpected and devastating events.
  
  mamie: nah, reflecting on a few things is all.
  
  writerspirit: yes, that's definitely ambiguous. i don't suppose you'd care to enlarge upon that?
  
  peedee: well, i think that purrkitten's examples are pretty good ones where they aren't.
  
  alyss: quit stealing my lines... :p
  
  mimi: yep, that's our LJ. :>
  
  soulreaver: have you never made a decision that came back and not only bit you on the ass but chewed it up rather a lot?
  
  ed

• peedee said on Dec 15, 2006....

  Yeah moonriver,  the silverwhisper has very rightly pointed it out that we inflict the most grievous wounds ourselves. I am joyed over your kidding. I am the accused and I have to uphold my guilt. What a difficult task ? Isn't it ?

• EvilTwin said on Dec 15, 2006....

  I have inflicted a great number of wounds upon myself, many of them grievous.  I have often felt they were deserved, and that I should not complain.  I have often bourne them without comment, sometimes for years.  Some I still carry with me...

  But someone recently told me that I don't have to keep doing that.  I don't have to bear the weight alone.  I don't have to take the responsibility for things that were beyond my control.  And I don't have to take responsibility for things that someone else may have caused me to think were my own fault...  Then another told me the same thing. 

  The first to tell me was my soulmate.  The other a very close friend.  And others have been kind enough to tell me so since I have been here at SoulCast, too...

  It does depend upon the perspective, whether or not the wounds I inflicted to myself are worse than the ones inflicted by others.  And it might depend upon whether or not ones I thought were self-inflicted were cleverly disguised, and I simply assumed they were of my own making.

  Still trying to work all of it out though...

• whoisit4 said on Dec 15, 2006....

  I like my self-inflicted wounds. Otherwise, why inflict them?
  
  Physical wounds can sometimes be good things. Surgery comes to mind. Although it's typically done by someone else, the patient usually consents. How about piercings? Or, ew, there's trepanation. Can't say I've done it, but I'd say one has to believe that there's a benefit enough to drill a hole in one's own head.
  
  I wonder if the same can be said of psychological wounds. It's an imperfect world and perhaps there are occasions for mental surgery. I scold my kids so that they learn to obey me. If I see them unwittingly flirting with immediate physical danger, I would hope for their lives they respond to my fervent commands without question. Perhaps we can adorn ourselves mentally by studying difficult subjects in an effort to increase our understanding. If you liken this more to exercise, have you seen what body builders submit themselves to? Listen to conservatives and liberals deride each other. They appear to be likely to suggest serious mental surgery for each other.
  

• PAPERBACKWRITER said on Dec 15, 2006....

  Hi Silver,
  
  Reading solely  the query you posed, and not reading the comments thoroughly of commenters --- I will say, I have to think about the answer myself for I do not have the answer now.
  
  I do have an answer to the one you posed to soulreaver:
  
  have you never made a decision that came back and not only bit you on the ass but chewed it up rather a lot?
  
  I DO; I DID; I THINK I WILL AGAIN   :    /
  
  paper~
  

• carmachu said on Dec 15, 2006....

  Only in a way. Some of the worse hurts are inflicted by others, intentional or not...

• raft said on Dec 15, 2006....

  I'm with Carmachu here.
  
  The self-inflicted part is whether you keep torturing yourself with it over time (a favorite past time, I must say), but usually the worst wounds are done by others.
  
  It's still debatable, because how big is the wound is usually correlated to the amount of trust you had in that person. So you can always debate that you left yourself open for hurting. <shrug>
  

• FaithfulDisciple said on Dec 16, 2006....

  But only to the extent that you allow them.  If we wallow too long in licking these self-inflicted wounds, we may end up in a state of deep depression.  Things happen for a reason sometimes even beyond our control.  The best remedy is immediate recognition and acceptance of consequences to change and improve for the better.
  
  The best defense is to understand that negative behavior is destructive and can and should be avoided whenever possible.  Who better to understand and help ourselves than us ourselves.
  

• silverwhisper said on Dec 17, 2006....

  ET: you know, i've long felt that we should only feel guilt for those things over which we have control.
  
  whoisit4: i didn't mean to suggest that routine discipline was in any way a bad idea.
  
  paper: o, i think it's unavoidable.
  
  carmachu: leave it to you to be the exception that proves the rule. :>
  
  raft: ah, but you see, these pastimes are part of the problem, wouldn't you say? :>
  
  FD: yes, that's part of my concern. as always, good to see you, my friend.
  
  ed

• raft said on Dec 17, 2006....

  SW: Yes, but in that case the problem is not the wound, but a person's unwillingness to close the wound. Not entirely the same thing.

• purrrkitten said on Dec 18, 2006....

  Strangely, guilt for things that you have happen to you, even when you have no control over it, is very common. We have a natural tendancy to blame ourselves even tho, say as a child, you couldn't stop your dad from  beating the hell out of you or your mom. This I know from first-hand experience (the guilt thing, not the beating thing).
   
  Sometimes, to close a wound is something that has absolutely NOTHING to do with unwillingness. First, you have to even KNOW that the wound is there to fix in the first place. Second, if the wound has been there since childhood, it takes a lot of cleaning and stitching to even get to the point of it being able to start healing. Thirdly, even when it is completely healed over, some things leave lasting scars. Scars are always still a little more sensitive than regular skin. Sometimes there is even a bit of pain that accompanies them. It's very difficult to understand for many people.

• livingrisky said on Mar 02, 2007....

  "I have abandoned my search for truth and am now looking for a good fantasy." Ashleigh Brilliant

• silverwhisper said on Mar 02, 2007....

  raft: sorry it's been so gorrammed long! fair point.
  
  purr: that's very wise.
  
  livingrisky: how on earth did you ever find this? and i'm curious if you had some specific meaning in mind re: this quotation. ?
  
  ed

• livingrisky said on Mar 03, 2007....

  If we could only know what other people thought... they don't think of us... they think of themselves... just like I do.. just like you do... reality sucks... I'm looking for a good fantasy... I mean does it ever ever ever get just fucking good... just fucking easy.. just fucking nice... that's what I mean... Life is hard... and no one is as hard on a 'sane' person as that person is..on themselves... I mean if you know your faults then you care about them more than anyone else so you make more of them... I just mean .. I wish I good fantasy would come my way... I'd like to escape the grievous wounds I inflict on myself just by THINKING... I don't know how to respond privately.,.. feel free to let me know... I just want someone to converse with about life and feelings... I mean... life hurts mostly.. do you know anyone who is truly happy? I might, I have a few canidates... I mean I know some people who are mostly NOT seeped in wounds... I'm not one of them but I hope to be... I hope to overcome... those I inflict myself... seriously... I damage myself... right now I'm putting shit out there that could bring me conflict and pain... that breings out things shouldn't be discussed or that should be buried and forgotten... oh... life it is what it is...

• silverwhisper said on Mar 03, 2007....

  livingrisky, it's clear that you're hurting--very badly. and i'm sorry to hear that.
  
  i hope you'll blog about why you're hurting.
  
  ed

• livingrisky said on Mar 04, 2007....

  I'm not really hurting, I just think life is hard. Takes a long time an all... More lonely than hurting for sure... I grew small town, and those are the people I know, most of them are married with kids and I'm not.  Haven't had a relationship in years, just never meet people, or if I do, hmmm there's just no history there that make it easy to be friends... I guess its hard for me to make friends... I have a few and they have all been my friends for 5-25 years... 5 years being the smallest amount of time that i've known someone I hang out with on a regular basis... Off the topic huh...

  Makes me laugh, here I am telling strangers what I'm thinking and yet I don't talk to anyone I know anymore... at least not about being lonely... they all seem so happy, and yah... don't think i'm some freak who never gets out or anything... I'm really busy... I meet up with friends a couple times a week for activities.. .dinner, dancing, dominoes, dog play dates... stuff... but I still feel lonely... I guess I really don't feel like digging deep right now, finding why I'm lonely in a crowd.  I know I miss having a man in my life a bit, but that's not all of it by any means... Hmm I don't know.

  Peace

• livingrisky said on Mar 04, 2007....

  You know what I meant to say was I try not to 'do' guilt... I mean I can't change the past, I can only do better in the future... And if I screw up twice and should feel guilty, then it's something I wanted, cause I did it twice... so where is the guilt in that.  Your only feel guilty when you know you did wrong... and if you choose to do it again, is it really something to feel guilty about?  I have a friend who feels guilty every time she eats... I have so totally never gotten it... so maybe I don't understand guilt?

• silverwhisper said on Mar 04, 2007....

  guilt is about understanding you did something wrong. the mere fact of wanting a thing doesn't necessarily make it acceptable. if i wanted to shoot my neighbor for playing music too loudly, that sure as hell isn't gonna stand in court when the cops bust me. WRT making friends, does that mean that your handle is ironic & self-deprecating?
  
  ed

• livingrisky said on Mar 04, 2007....

  It was a skydiving thing... the 'livingrisky' that is...  though I must say--skydiving is incredibly safe if you do it correctly.  And you know there was a time 10 years a ago where trying to figure out a stupid/ or NOTso stupid handle for email was a seriously hard prospect...everything was taken... I would totally have loved Peace or Peaceful, but I didn't want a bunch of numbers...  

  So I have this saying Live, Love, & Laugh, and life is all about the living right? And if you don't take chances, than for me that wouldn't be living, trying a new job, learning to swing dance, buying a dog--yes the not knowing if I had it in me to take care of a little dog that totally relied on me, I have come home after work and can't make spur of the moment plans as I now have that dog... living & learning... I almost gave the dog back... oooh... I get it... maybe... as I would felt guilty cause no one could love him as much as me, even if I had to sacrifice time on other things cause I had to take care of the dog, or make sure the dog was taken care of, no taking off for a four day diving trip without making sure someone was available to take care of the dog...  

  As for the guilt... Yah, I don't mean the whole shoot the neighbor thing.. I try not to want things I can't have, sure it's great to dream, but that's dream not a serious want... Like having a truck for winter and car for summer... it would be nice... but if I really wanted that I could make it happen, less shoes or purses bought each month would make it happen... So I wouldn't want to shoot my loud neighbor, but I might want to go over and yell at them (which would make me look like an ass) so I wouldn't do anything...but I sure wouldn't feel guilty about being loud if they did it first... Respect is a two way street...  See I don't understand guilt... hmmm and if I was loud and the neighbor came and complained I'd turn it down a notch or two...  I guess i do get it, and now that I'm thinking all these things... like I would have felt guilty getting a dog, making him love me and then giving him back, so I didn't... and I once drove home after a softball tourney totally drunk, didn't remember the trip home... I feel (still years later) remember that next morning going I did not drive home... looking out the window and seeing the truck... and going DAMN... I'll never do that again... And I don't... I didn't take my truck places where I would be drinking, softball tourney all day.. have a friend pick me up or my mom drop me off.. (she lives by the fields and I can always walk to her house)... Cause I'll never do that again... But I don't know if that's guilt... It might just be seeing a wrong and righting it.   

• silverwhisper said on Mar 04, 2007....

  guilt is an interesting thing. we learn its lessons, i feel, b/c we know we've come short of those values we hold dear. and i agree that your refusal to drive anywhere again doesn't sound like it's guilt. i've had a similar experience, truth be told, and even though it was years ago now, i sure as hell don't plan to repeat that experience ever.
  
  i like that saying and the wisdom it represents.
  
  ed

• livingrisky said on Mar 04, 2007....

  One of my friends... says that the saying isn't complete... she says it's great to live life, love someone, then be able to laugh about it, but if you don't LEARN from it than what's the point....the 4 L's...   Yah, I made it up when I 16 in defense against a guy I dated who was into the 4 F's... find em, feel em, fuck em and forget em....  and yah him and I are still friends, but only because I never slept with him!!!

• moonriver said on Mar 04, 2007....

  4 F's vs 4 L's -- nice contrast, livingrisky. hey, didn't you notice? you also lined up a nice set of 4 D's -- dinner, dancing, dominoes, dog play dates. many men will fall for even 2 out of 4 D's i'm sure... :-)
  
  
  

• livingrisky said on Mar 04, 2007....

  Moonriver- Nice... I didn't notice that maybe I'll have to check out some more sets of four for my life...

• silverwhisper said on Mar 05, 2007....

  good thing you didn't sleep w/ him, if that's his attitude!
  
  ed

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