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From: sunny@sun.uucp (Ms. Sunny Kirsten)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: feelin' no pain?
Message-ID: <2061@sun.uucp>
Date: Sat, 16-Mar-85 18:58:09 EST
Article-I.D.: sun.2061
Posted: Sat Mar 16 18:58:09 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 18-Mar-85 07:30:59 EST
References: <5204@tektronix.UUCP>
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Lines: 33

> Everyone of us has parts of our personality that we've denied 
> because somewhere along the way, it didn't seem in our best interest
> to express them.  Re-integrating those parts is a painful experience,
> and being in the middle of a massive reintegration process right now,
> I fully understand why people choose to stay in the safety of numbness.
> 
> G*d, it's hard pretending to be a normal, well-adjusted human being
> when all I feel is the pain inside.  Obviously, there was pain 
> involved with the way I was operating in my life before, or I would
> not have chosen to change it, and it was a familiar pain.  It was
> comfortable like an old fuzzy robe.
> All I know about the new pain is that I feel like I've jumped off
> a cliff and I'm in free-fall (and those fish in the water down 
> there:  are they sharks or dolphins?  I can't see from here.)
> 
	They're dolphins, and if you ask real nice they'll guide you
away from the sharks, whom they're not particularly fond of, either.
	Also, there's no need of pretense to being normal, well-adjusted,
just because you realize you're human, because it's not particularly
normal to be well-adjusted.  Just keep working on the re-integration and
the pain will go away.  Follow your intuition, and find a copy of
Shirley McLaine's "Out On A Limb" to read when you're not too busy
studying to consume the American Dream.  Yes, re-integration is painful,
because it's a process of finally living all the pain you "stuffed" and
previously refused to face.  But once you've faced it and gotten over it,
you're over it, and it isn't laying around cluttering up your life anymore.
And remember not to stuff any more pain for the future, but to deal with
it when it happens.  It IS better to feel the pain AS it happens today,
rather than to feel nothing now, by stuffing the pain and saving it for a
rainy day.
				Hugs...Sunny
-- 
{ucbvax,decvax,ihnp4}!sun!sunny (Ms. Sunny Kirsten)