I have discovered what is wrong with me.
I? Am too normal.
I have never been raped. I’ve been groped, grabbed, cornered, slobbered on, touched inappropriately and have had sex when I really didn’t want to but I’m not losing my mind over it, am not living in fear over it and I certainly don’t consider myself any sort of victim.
I have never had to see a therapist.
I have never done more than experimental drug use and never really liked anything I tried.
I only drink on rare occasions, usually socially, occasionally a few glasses of wine at home.
My kid is good.
I’ve never been truly depressed, didn’t even have postpartum.
I own a lawn mower and have insurance on our truck and bike.
My dogs don’t dig in the yard.
I plant flowers.
I close twitter and go to my brother’s birthday party (or will be, in about an hour) without clutching my iPhone in one hand and feeling the need to text and tweet the whole time I’m there.
My parents beat me a bit but it didn’t fuck me up.
The nuns beat me and humiliated me a lot and that may have fucked me up a little, but I’m okay with that.
I am generally nice unless someone is mean to me.
I lost my virginity to a stranger on a camping trip and that didn’t fuck me up, either.
I’ve slept with probably a lot of people but have no real regrets. I’m not tortured by my past sluthood though I am past it.
I don’t like breaking the law, breaking rules or doing bad things.
I dated an abusive fucker almost all thru high school but that didn’t fuck me up, either. I think of him fondly, actually. We were young and dumb.
I’ve had an abortion. That didn’t fuck me up either.
I’ve had miscarriages. That sucked but no lingering craziness.
I’ve been divorced twice. I’m okay with that.
I’ve been with Taylor longer than either of my ex husbands. Longer than the two combined, really. And yet we’re not married. I’m good with that, too.
I rarely lie and, when I do, it’s usually to keep someone else out of trouble.
Now, I’m not perfect and I certainly have my share of issues; insecurity, lack of body confidence, vanity, a temper, occasional fits of jealousy…
But, mostly? I’m just too normal.
And that, I think, is why I have so little sympathy for those who let the shit in their lives make them into someone they don’t want to be. I can empathize, to a point, with the horrors and bad shit people go thru but I have no sympathy for letting it turn you into a nut.
And before anyone gives me lectures about mental illness…
I was a psych tech for 4 years. I’ve worked with the nuttiest of nuts. I’m not talking about profound mental illness but about raving, drama queen, oh, poor me, I do nothing but sit on this computer all day and complain about how shitty my life is nuts.
You know. Those who certainly can function but choose to let the shit stand in the way of them being happy and living a good life.
And on that note…
I’m outtie. I gots a birthday party to go to and I need to make sure my hair is pretty…
~peace
30 Comments
Join the conversation and post a comment.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
- Tweets that mention Diagnosis? Too Normal. « A View from the Floor -- Topsy.com - [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by CarrieAnn , CarrieAnn . CarrieAnn said: Diagnosis? Too normal. http://bit.ly/cAbTug [...]
Leave a Comment
Follow Me!
I drink a lot of coffee, ride a motorcycle, have an 18 year old son and a decade long relationship that began in a chat room.
I didn’t know a lot of those things about you. :) And I’m glad none of it got to you. Sometimes I honestly feel the same way – maybe I just need more bad shit in my life or something because I really have little sympathy for people who dwell on something.
Congratulations on completely transcending all the shit that we mere mortals have to deal with. Maybe someday I’ll figure out how to rise above my pathetic, weak-minded existence. It appears that not having any compassion to weigh one down helps.
If it’s okay for people to be royally fucked up by the shit in their lives, it is ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY okay for them NOT to me, as well.
What? You’d feel better if all my shit HAD fucked me up?
Fuck you. Wishing me harm like that.
My saying you lack compassion makes you think I wish you harm? If you think compassion is harmful, well, that explains a lot.
Let’s see.
You assumed I think I’m godlike, more than mortal. You assumed I felt you are weak-minded and pathetic. You assumed I have no compassion.
Is it wrong for me to assume you would rather I were wallowing in misery over my past, that doing so would make me fit in better? That you’d be happier if I were hurting?
Sure seemed that way to me.
And, for the record…
I am absolutely compassionate about the suffering of others. Right up until they refuse to do anything about it themselves.
Those who are incapable have my deepest sympathies.
Those who prefer being miserable, who do nothing to help themselves, who let the past rule their future are the ones I refuse to feel sympathy or pity for.
The past, the issues we’ve all had to deal with, those are often beyond our control. What we do afterwards, what we make of ourselves and our lives? Is up to us and only us.
I do NOT have to spend my life feeling sorry for those who spend all their time feeling sorry for themselves.
Ya know, no where in here did Carrie say she was better than any of the people who have the issues she mentioned. She wasn’t attacking them or putting them down. She was, in a round about way, telling them to get off their asses and do something about it, rather than continuing to dwell on it.
You know how I know that? Cause Carrie’s one of my best friends. And I’m one of the nuts she’s talking about.
You are, without a doubt, a nut.
*nods*
But, you know what? You’re so self aware, so able to see your issues and you work SO fucking hard at overcoming them, you are not at ALL the type of person I was talking about.
I love you to pieces, woman.
Aww, thanks, Carrie. It’s good to know it’s noticeable.
And you know I love you, too.
“Is it wrong for me to assume you would rather I were wallowing in misery over my past, that doing so would make me fit in better?”
I’m glad you feel great. What I’m not so glad about, is the implication in this post that those who don’t feel as great as you do are lazy fucks who deserve what they get. You don’t even have to feel sorry for all us miserable slobs, you could just not even think about us at all.
There you go, putting words in my mouth again.
Miserable slobs?
Do you let the shit in your life turn you into someone you don’t want to be? Are you a nut? Are you a “raving, drama queen, oh, poor me, I do nothing but sit on this computer all day and complain about how shitty my life is…” type?
No?
Then I wasn’t fucking talking about you, was I? And your assumptions are ridiculous. Your ego astounding.
Stop assuming I meant you. Stop reading into my words.
And stop taking offense at shit I never said.
Fair enough. I assumed you were talking to me, categorically, since I have “had to” see a therapist, and I have “let” trauma “fuck me up” from time to time and I probably fall into the category of “nut” whose mental illness is likely not obvious enough to be “profound” by your definition, since I can “function,” and sometimes I even have the nerve to talk about it to other people.
It’s true that it’s not what you said, exactly, that I take issue with. It’s the implied judgement that the proper thing to do after experiencing a trauma is not to talk about it, not to admit any lingering pain, but to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” so to speak, and that to do any less is a sign of weakness, or being “crazy” or permanently “damaged”. Your post implies that there is only one right way to deal with pain, grief, or trauma, and that to do it “wrong” makes all your unpleasant emotions your own fault. I realize you never said any of this. I’m sure you didn’t even mean to imply it. But I cannot read your intentions, I can only read your post. And I’m not trying to insult you as a person, I’m reacting only to this post as I perceived it.
The damaging messages about guilt and blaming victims that seem to be lurking between the lines of this post are common, often repeated with varying degrees of subtlety, and extremely painful to be on the receiving end of. I wouldn’t have commented at all if I were merely “offended” or thought you were being deliberately malicious or stupid. Reading your post hurt me, reiterating all the other voices that victims of any kind, particularly female ones, always hear when dealing with any of the ordeals you have mentioned. “Just get over it already” is advice that is worse than useless to those unable to take it. Your admirable ability to “just get over it” doesn’t remove the painful implications of that message for the rest of us.
I wrongly assumed that my sarcasm in my original comment wouldn’t obscure my meaning. I truly think it’s awesome that you’re so satisfied with your life, and I have no doubt that you worked hard to create that life for yourself. I just think that a lot of the people you call “nuts” and who you blame for not doing anything are probably doing more than you realize. In my experience, you can’t safely assume that you know what is going on in another person’s head, and it’s damn near impossible to be the judge of whether someone else is capable of something either physically or mentally.
If you’re referring to someone specific in your life, then I’m not trying to argue with that. But if you’re referring, as it seems, to everyone who hasn’t had the good fortune of arriving at a place of contentment in their lives, who haven’t completely left behind every trace of “craziness” and who still feel trapped and unable to live the lives they want, then your words, if not your intended meaning, are damaging.
If it helps, you can replace my original comment with the words, “Fuck, that hurt.” Really, that more accurately captures my reaction to this post.
I am sorry if my post hurt you.
I am also very, very tired of being told I’m victim blaming. Or intentionally hurtful. Or whatever.
Part of the point of my post was that I am, as the title says “too” normal.
Too.
As in, oddly so. Freakishly so.
Perhaps it is my normality that is flawed.
Regardless, the words being put in my mouth thing really bothers me. Even in this reply, where you’re trying to set things right, I’m hearing that I “just got over it”.
I never said that.
I said I’m not fucked up now. That I did, indeed, get over it. But I didn’t “just” get over it, like none of it hurt, none of it was bad.
What I “just” did was not let it effect me forever, not let it rule my entire life.
Meh.
Fact is, I was talking about myself and how I am different than many and how some people irk me with their inability to EVER get over something, their willingness to continue letting the bad shit win. I wasn’t trying to blame anyone for their past issues nor “mock” anyone.
And it would be really nice if folks would read what I said rather than hear what they think I meant.
I feel like we all get dealt a different hand. No one gets exactly what they want out of life and everyone has their own hardships to work through. There are millions of happy people in the world and I’m certain they’ve had terrible things happen to them. We all have. I feel like you do, in regards to people who lead relatively easy lives and have the means to cope with the few curve balls life throws at them. I have no pity or compassion for people who refuse to try and help themselves. I just don’t, and I don’t feel bad for it either. You shouldn’t either.
This, exactly. ” I feel like you do, in regards to people who lead relatively easy lives and have the means to cope with the few curve balls life throws at them”
And those who create their own issues, who put stumbling blocks in their own path, over and over again.
I think compassion can exist without supporting dysfunctional behaviors. Saying you have no pity or compassion for people who don’t try to help themselves sounds a little bit like disdain to me. It may not be what you mean, I’m only telling you what it seems like to me. Then again, I could be misinterpreting what you mean by compassion, so I don’t mean to offend.
All of us have differing experiences in life-for example, like you Carrie Ann, I’ve been groped or cat called or had bad nights of sex that could definitely have qualified as that gray area where some might have called it questionable. I’ve not been damaged by it.
I’ve never had an abortion but I sure as shit think if I found myself in a position to need one it would fuck my shit up.
I’ve had post-partum depression, like intense….it was horrifying. I’ve had a few occurrances in my life that were very damaging. I bear the psychic scar tissue but am aware of it and do my best to work around it.
I’ve had therapy, taken anti-depressants (cause in my case it was a chemical malfunction and was sure as shit not something I could just buck up and get over. Therapy is a sign of strength. Getting support is strong.
I’ve been lucky enough in my life to have not only feet, but boots. Sometimes it’s taken a little help to get the boots laced so I could pull myself up with those straps. I’ve worked hard, though there have certainly been times when I’ve missed the mark.
At the same time though, I’ve seen people with more damage in their lives than mine who handled it far better than me. And I’ve seen people with less damaging moments who have been MORE wounded by the experiences.
I have no idea why this is. Some people can’t get the boots on their feet when they are given boots. Some people don’t even seem to have feet. Some people have the feet, the boots and the ability to pull themselves up but refuse.
It is, in my opinion, impossible to tell on the surface which person is which. To tell which person is really trying to get on with life, or not, because on the surface what looks like helping themselves could really be a fucked up situation and vice versa.
I offer compassion to people until I personally have experienced that they are willfully rejecting support, and even then I don’t discount the possibility that they just don’t know how to accept it.
That doesn’t mean I get into a co-dependent or dysfunctional relationship with them, only that I offer the help I can and keep an open heart and ear for them if they eventually decide to get healthy. I can offer that compassion while maintaining a boundary and modeling behaviors for them that are healthy. But I don’t reject them.
People experience similar actions with completely disimilar reactions. What’s a grope to you, could be a terribly difficult situation for someone else.
Anyway, I think real compassion is in rare amounts these days, especially on the internet.
Carrie Ann – I definitely feel like this sometimes. I’ve had lots of shit in my life. My brother’s in jail. I help prosecute domestic violence. I’m neurotic, OCD and all together wacky. But I haven’t let shit in my past drag me down. I’m surprisingly well adjusted and down to earth. I love my fellow human being as I would love myself and genuinely think this world would be so much better if we all adhered to that belief. Sometimes I feel under attack from people who let their own mentalities drag them down, almost as if I’m supposed to be just like them or be ashamed I’ve managed to be stronger than my past problems. I refuse to allow myself to feel like any less of a person because of someone else. It’s an inner strength we all must find and carry with us. Kudos to you for finding that strength. I admire you and how wonderfully “normal” you are. Much love.
Thank you. And kudos right back at you!
I totally agree. Those who refuse to move on with their lives after a trauma/tragedy but instead choose to wallow in their misery & identify themselves as a victim drive me crazy. I would rather label myself as a survivor, someone who was able to overcome adversity & still be a functional human being.
BTW, this post hasn’t raised a fuss just here in the comments, it was also tweeted about in an insulting & shitty way. I had to unfollow a snarky bitch because
Of it!
Ugh.
I wonder if I should thank them for all the hits?
heh.
Power to you for being a strong, healthy, aware person!
I had a bit of a knee jerk reaction when I saw this tweeted out yesterday. Mostly because, while I have had a lot of the things that you’ve mentioned, I feel pretty normal, too. Huge percentages of people have experienced rape, child abuse, mental illness, postpartum depression, and the heartbreak of psoriasis (kidding!) – which makes all that stuff kind of normal, really.
What I get from what you said is that you dislike people who don’t pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and keep moving forwards. And I get that. What I have learned though is that some people really are doing the absolute best that they can with what they have. For some folks, that means that they do a lot of complaining on twitter – maybe that’s the only place that they have in their lives where they feel heard and cherished. For others, that means that they have to live with the pain they have until it becomes severe enough for them to be able to look for help. In any case, we all have to go through what we have to go through; I’m just grateful that as shitty as my path has been, I’ve had people around me that have carried me through it until I could carry myself.
“I’m just grateful that as shitty as my path has been, I’ve had people around me that have carried me through it until I could carry myself.”
Until you could carry yourself. NOTHING at all wrong with that. But when ti comes to people to take a liking to being carried. Who would rather let the folks around them carry them through life, instead of standing on their own, and they use their minor or even fictitious traumas to justify that do-less attitude and way of life. They do absolutely nothing to better themselves, they just continue being fuck ups. Those are the people we have no pity for, no compassion for, no patience for. They don’t deserve it.
I followed this here from twitter. And, uh… while I agree with you on some points(I don’t really feel sympathy for certain things) others you kind of come off as high-and mighty. My first read through I pretty much summed up as “Oh look what a good and normal life I lead! Some bad things happened but it’s okay because I’m normal!” in my head, even though I get what you were saying.
I don’t believe I am a compassionate person, but I try to show sympathy where it’s due. But you do have to understand(and I’m sure you do, but for clarification’s sake) that not everybody reacts to things the same way you do. While that WOULD be nice and all, the world just doesn’t work that way. I’d love it if everyone analyzed things like I do, because there really wouldn’t be assholes that way.
For example, your miscarriage. It didn’t fuck you up, but for other people it could ruin them. For some, losing a child, whether it be during pregnancy or after, can be a seriously crippling emotional blow(now, I kind of hate babies, so this isn’t coming from a HURPDERP LIFE IZ SPESHUL view). It’s not because they “let life shit on them.” That’s pretty much saying it’s their fault, as if they could have done something to prevent it. Shit happens in life but there are just some things people can’t move beyond.
Although, things like “wah wah my boyfriend of one month dumped me omg i want to diiie” I can’t stand. So in a way we’re a bit alike? At least, I think, in certain views, though I consider myself to be a very bitter and lonely person. I know what’s wrong with me and I don’t really try to change it because I’m happier this way than I was during high school.
Though, it’s kind of obvious to tell when someone is genuinely upset by something and when they’re really over-dramatizing what happened. There are some thing you really can’t tell people to “get the fuck over.”
I never actually said most of what you’re saying.
I never said anyone should just get the fuck over anything.
I never said my miscarriages didn’t hurt me or cause me intense grief, sadness and temporary fuck up’ness.
And this is half the problem – people assuming they know what I meant to say or was trying to say.
I said what I meant.
Period.
I was only responding to how I, personally, took what you wrote. I was only using examples from your text to explain how I felt about this sort of topic. “Get the fuck over” were my words, not yours, but for me that’s the same thing as telling someone to move on in less polite text. Which is what it sounds like you were trying to say.
And I didn’t say your miscarriage didn’t make you sad or fuck you up for a time, I’m using your ability to get over it as an example to show that other people can’t because they’re not like you.
I wasn’t putting any words in your mouth, I was explaining how I interpreted your entry and what I felt wasn’t quite right. I wasn’t trying to insult you, just be honest.
I think what I find confusing is that you list a great number of things that sound difficult-beatings at the hands of your parents and nuns (something that I makes me terribly sad to hear), abusive from a lover, miscarriages and such, but your delivery of the experience….meaning, how you are describing them, your writing style and tone, are nearly flippant. You may not intend to be flippant, that may not have been the tone in your head when you were writing, but to me (and I’m speaking for me) that’s how it comes off. Flippant and defensive.
“I dated an abusive fucker almost all thru high school but that didn’t fuck me up, either. I think of him fondly, actually”
But then you respond to the comments in a very angry fashion about how they did upset you, these experiences,
“I never said my miscarriages didn’t hurt me or cause me intense grief, sadness and temporary fuck up’ness”
When I read the first post and then read the responses, I get a sense of disconnect.
And hell yeah, it’s your blog so you can write about your personal experiences in any way you want. If you have personal pain and ghosts from those experiences and you don’t want to wallow in them on the internet, amen that’s your choice. But what I see from the post is that you haven’t had any emotional or psychic ramifications at all from the numerous difficult life experiences you’ve gone through, then…when that’s pointed out you get pissed.
Many of the things you listed sound very hard-abuse, beatings and humilations, miscarriage. I personally get very very angry about kids being treated poorly and I think it’s a fucked up thing to lay on a kid, physical abuse of any kind.
That being said, your point remains that one should do one’s best to rise above experiences, learn from them, grow from them and not ruminate or wallow in victim hood. And I agree with Sarah’s post entirely.
And I’m out.
RAPE. RAPE. Yeah I had to say it twice in all caps. Because every time the subject either comes up, or is even referred to that’s how it’s treated. It’s shouted in your face. It’s a billboard over the freeway. It’s this huge fucking punch in the face for anyone who doesn’t immediately treat every attention seeking twit who can’t admit she simply wanted to fuck like some fragile broken little bird.
VICTIM BLAMING. VICTIM BLAMING. Again all caps and said twice. Because it’s slung around that way. It’s used like Loki’s Sword of Vengeance. Verbally decapitating anyone who doesn’t cater to and enable every perpetual victim who utters a whimper.
News flash sunshine. Just because someone was raped doesn’t mean they have to spend the rest of their fucking life feeling like a victim, or at least pretending to.
Now some will say. “Taylor you’re just a misogynistic brute. You can’t imagine what it’s like to be treated that way.” And I would say, guess again toots, I’ve been there, and have the scars around my asshole to prove it. I have the constant bowel issues to prove it. Do I let it fuck with my head on a daily basis? No. Yeah it’s a daily problem, due to REAL physical damage. Not some stupid mental hang up. Not some easy excuse for me to constantly sit and pity myself. Not some lame excuse to consistently fuck my life up and expect those around me to make up for it.
Yes there were bad things that happened to me. But they do not define who I am. I don’t walk around facing the world as a fucking victim. I take responsibility for my decisions and I live my life.
Sure this is a bit off the topic but I felt like saying it. And AS a former victim of the very shit the people Carrie was talking about using as an excuse to be fuck ups, I have a right to talk about it. I have a right to bitch about it. All you victim advocates said so. So go ahead and give me grief about it. Go ahead, blame the victim.
I bet therapy would do you some good. That totally sounds bitchy, right? But I mean it in the way that most people can probably benefit from some therapy, even if it means from going from good to better.
From this post, I would assume you’re a resilient person (or I could assume you’re in crazy denial d=). Some people just are. And if you are, it can be difficult to understand that some people just aren’t. I actually have that problem sometimes. I don’t know what it is. Nature? Nurture? Aliens? Phthalates? d= It’s just harder for some people to pull themselves up by their boot straps and, it can be difficult to listen to what comes off as bitching or whining. But it’s damned near impossible to understand that if you’re just not that type of person.
Do a lot of people play victim? Surely. IS there usually something going on that you can’t understand as an outsider? Yep.
WOW. I don’t comment here ever and only check in from time to time but I have to say this is crazy. In my book you are far from normal and that’s what made the post so funny to me. Are you not allowed to voice your opinion? I’m amazed and you should be too Carrie Anne. I didn’t know I read the blog of such a powerful woman. Really, why would such a big deal be made of a simple post on the blog of a “normal” woman if they didn’t care what you thought. Carrie Ann you are well aware you are rude, crass and really funny as shit and anyone who has reads your blog should not take offense at all. I think you said what many of us think and are just too polite to say. Like you I’ve had some things happen to me but I don’t let it take control of my life. All of your past good and bad has helped create who you are today and in my mind because you like who you are today you feel “normal”. You should be pleased with yourself and I personally feel Adriana saying therapy would do you good, is rude. Are you happy? So why the hell, do you need therapy? Bullshit.
oh I get it! You’re a sociopath!
Also, unwanted/undesired sex makes it either Rape, or you’re a whore… so… pick one <3