What are you stitching next?

I don't think that people should make judgements about other people based on little or no evidence. You argued, correctly, that people do it all the time and apply them. I've pointed out that the application part, in our society, at least, depends on convincing others of the correctness of those judgements. And I think that's hard to do without evidence, so I'm back to my original point.

Elizabeth

One of my teachers, a nun, runs tours annually:

And if that were true, there would have been no Andrew Carnegies, no Bill Clintons, no one would ever rise about their circumstances, driven by a discontent with their surroundings. No one would have settled the Americas, no one would have opened the West (to the delight of the natives who would still live there). No matter how many times you repeat it; no matter how you phrase it, I still think you're wrong.

Elizabeth

She belittled me for years and years and years for not being "saved," for living with a man before marriage, told me siin leads to death, and a host of other very odd things which I overlooked. And she didn't trust me, she dumped that on me. I found it disgusting that she has cheated on every boyfriend she ever had, and now while pregnant cheated on her husband, who disallowed her to visit me in TX because I was some sort of threat. I found it reprehensible that she would think I would be okay with that information. What does that say about how she viewed my character? There was a lot of "stuff" for many years. That simply was the straw that broke the camel's back. Don't judge me for eliminating her "friendship." What do you think of someone who has sex with another man while pregnant? You're okay with that? I'm not. So after all was said and done my moral character was much different than hers. I had some, she didn't. Toxic. So yes, her anguish was caused by HER now me. I find it interesting that yo see me as the bad guy. I never cheated on anyone in my life.

Somehow this makes more sense than how I originally read it. I wonder why you put up with the belittling for years and years, but somehow we seem to take that from old friends and siblings, don't we? I try not to anymore, but it's hard.

I'm not ok with sleeping around, but we all make mistakes. That's what being human is about. If she was asking you to comfort her while still condemning you, that's a problem, though.

Elizabeth

Of course life goes on. What's the alternative? I still cried my eyes out when my father drank himself to death at age 59. I cried my eyes out when my cat "Mushie" died, and then when my cats "Crane," and "Geena" died as well as when our dog Ozzy died. Cried my eyes out. I cry my eyes out when I see dogs in cages, or when I merely think of the dogfights which are happening as we speak, as well as c*ck fights and dogs being drowned or beaten to death when they lose fights. Yes, I cry my eyes out when I see children starving to death, or dying of thirst, or when I see a bird fly in front of a car and get pulverized. I can't watch any movies or documentaries where animals kill and eat other animals, nor can I watch any war movies. None of this involves hysterics.

However, I'm cultured enough to know that in Japan they don't have idle talk in public on trains, busses or in the streets. I'm intelligent enough to pick up a book about the culture of places I am traveling to. I don't want to fit the common mold of ugly America, or as our president calls it, Merican.

Eh, really, in life, I just want to live my life and not hurt anyone or be hurt by anyone. That would be my perfect world.

But both fainting at the sight of blood and shutting down over bloody pictures have much more to do with personality than with learning to deal with it, in my opinion. Some people still faint, no matter how much blood they see.

Elizabeth

Ah, Vic, that's sucky. {{{{hugs}}}}

One of my childhood friends, when she heard I was getting divorced, cut off all contact and I've never heard from her again. At a time when I most needed emotional support, she cut me off because she couldn't see beyond her religious snap judgment.

One time when I was home, I ran into her mother, and explained the reasons for the divorce, that a church counselor was the first one to advise me to get out, and although her mother agreed that I made the right decision, it still didn't matter to my friend. Good Catholic girls do not hang around with divorced women, no matter what the reason was for the divorce, even if the church gave you permission to get divorced, and that's that.

And some of us started out being sensitive children who couldn't bear to look at any injury and wound up dispassionately looking at the worst accident photos because we learned how to sublimnate the emotions and do the job.

Absolutely. But where you see that as the result of experience, I see it as the result of a particular personality type.

Elizabeth

As someone who does this - I'd say it's not easier, but different. People that deal with human horrible situations regularly tend to be those that were never made queasy by those circumstances. Point blank- you can't get through the training - let alone the real things. But, at the same time you focus on what has to be done, etc - some of us- even in the field are better at being organized, some at hands on, etc. After the call, however - there can be plenty of tears and emotional situations. In recent years, Stress management at various levels has become an important part of the support structure for EMS personnel. I know medics that still cry when they think about the first dead child they dealt with.

Personally, I think while looking at photos can be stressful, and full of horrible things - it's not quite the same as dealing with first person death and dying. Again, different people handle this all differently WRT tasks at hand, and responsibility, personal experience.

We each make our own pacts with how we deal, and our beliefs about responsibilities toward humanity, the world, animals, etc. No one does everything - those that try end up burning out. But, still, I wouldn't make big sweeping generalizations about human emotions in groups because I think there is so much that goes into defining the situation (like the boundary values in a complex mathematical situation - how are they defined when trying to write physics into math).

ellice

I've been to some Buddhist shrines in the north, and spent some time up in the Himalayas on the China Border. Cold. Different. Great people. Do your trip when you're ready - take all your meds with you, and plenty of Immodium.

It's well worth it.

Ellice

it is true that we learn from former experiences that a feeling we feel , might change with time , And stll i don`t agree that one gets used to grieve, Since every death is so different , natural or unnatural , sudden or not sudden , were we in good warm relations with the person that sied , or did we just had a fight with him/her ,, there are so many factors that take their toll. Amongst many people i know ,who have been exposed to grieve from a very young age, it reopens more pains . amongst others they become less attached [ are afraid to be attached to any body... there are many reactions , we are not made of ONE format , as humans !!!! mirjam

And as you said, not only unique to each individual person, but unique to each situation. I remember hearing once that when someone is mourning, they're not necessarily mourning the *immediate* situation. Grief is such a complicated emotion -- and often a cumulative one. At Aunt Jane's funeral it may not really be Aunt Jane you're mourning, it might be your father, who died 10 years earlier, or your best friend who died when you were 12, or even mourning yourself - the idea of your own future death. So while you may not be so close to Aunt Jane, the grief you feel could be much larger than you expected the situation to warrant

- or conversely, much less, and it'll catch up with you later at some other point in time.

Learned coping skills give the "head" some sense of routine, history, experience, and boundaries that the emotional heart may or may not hear. Depends on whether the two are working in synch, or one or the other is dominant. I suspect you can learn the facts, the knowledge that life will go on, etc., but *feelings* are known in another realm and sometimes exist beyond the reach of mere factual knowledge.

sue

I put up with it because I understood her snobbery based on how her family was. They were money people. I too came from old money people. We shared the eccentricities within that realm so I overlooked it. Eventually she started to wear me down and her cheating during her third trimester of pregnancy was reprehensible. There is always two sides to every story, but this is not something up for debate. She actually did this after years of telling me how I would go to hell if I continued to live in sin. In other words, everything she stood for was BS.

Cheating is not a mistake. It's cheating. A mistake is when we walk down the wrong road and get lost. A mistake is when we say something is black when it's white, etc. I spent a year comforting her thinking she was having post partum. Her husband was a creep and I comforted her for that too, but she still popped out the babies, so...

Her mistake was marrying him. I didn't go to the wedding because I didn't think it was the right thing to do. Then she had five kids. Eh, I'm sorry for blasting her, she's not even a factor in my life any more. I hope she can live with herself. I'm no longer her dumping ground.

Yeah well, she was the one who lost out. I live with my best friend, his name is Mark! Eventually we did get married and we've been living in the same house for 15 years. Sin and all!

I still stay in touch with my old friends younger sister. I was a friend of the family after all those years. It was like I was family, then some of them became born again fundamentalist. Her sister told me she's taken to now being so uppity she has a British accent. I find the whole thing hysterical.

That's the spirit!

I'd love to hear a "British accent"

Well you take a little Cockney, add in some praper Devon, go through Summerset and carry on lol