...THERE'S ALWAYS HOPE... (I HOPE...) THERE'S ALWAYS HOPE... (I HOPE...) THERE'S ALWAYS HOPE... (I HOPE...) THERE'S ALWAYS HOPE...

... my   "Keep In Touch"   pages ... my   "Keep In Touch"   pages ... my   "Keep In Touch"   pages ... my   "Keep In Touch"   pages ... my   "Keep In Touch"   pages ...
2000 HEARTBEATS

"but I could never block her,
she is in need of help,
what kind of poet or person would I be
 if I turned my back on one in need?"


~ a friend ~



a friend wrote these words and it got me to thinking... when to draw a
line... when to stop giving... when to stop reaching out... is unconditional
love always available... or is it always reaching out no matter what?...

there is a difference, I think...

digging into my own experience... and it has been one of the most challenging
lessons I have ever learned and am still learning... I read the books, I took
the courses, I got the certificates and degree... and everything I learned
made sense... and yet everything I read was discarded by my heart...

a huge part of the foundation of my core philosophy is summed up in this:

"I know when a child is hurting that the silence can be wrong
I know when old folks are helpless I can't just pass along
and I know when someone's hungry I can't just sing this song
and when I hear somebody crying I can't just wonder who that it could be"

~ Harry Chapin ~

and yet, another just as powerful thought I base who I am on is that
anything is possible and that there is no such thing as " can't "...

the two core foundation stones of who I am seemed in conflict until I
experienced the wall between life and death in my own way...

the moment of truth - the answer to the question "is there a right time to
turn away from someone in need" came to me when I was on the street and
had not eaten in 3 days... I got there by giving everything I could give to
a family who was in need... so they could eat and keep shelter...

and when I'd earn some money, I'd buy a phone card to call and check on
whether they needed more before I'd feed myself... I didn't need food,
there was free food available and I knew where... and if the streets got
cold, I knew where and how to stay warm... and bathing in public rest
rooms keeps a body clean... however I was slowly dying...

the physical challenge was taking it's toll... the relatively constant emotional
crisis was eating me alive inside... and then I realized that dead I could not
help anyone... so letting myself die was not accomplishing what I would want
to do... I realized I had to start placing myself ahead of someone else...
I had to survive, intact, without restricting myself, feelings or creativity...

but I was ready to die... I layed on the street after not eating for three
days and looked up at the stars and closed my eyes and was ready not to
wake up again... I welcomed sleep and said farewell to life...

and when I woke I had a new thought... if it actually would have helped
people I wanted to help, I'd have happily given this physical life...

but death would have only accomplished a few things... an end to my pain...
an end to the help they'd receive... and a birth of even more profound guilt
and scars in them that I'd never want them to have... I'd have hurt those
I would have died for by dying... so I had to live and be me...

and so I started sharing what I could do and earn with myself too... and as
I stepped out of bottom level street survival mode, I started realizing that
I allowed those people I would give my life for to become too dependant on
me... and that I had become too dependant on their needing me...

and every time I gave more, I was reinforcing their belief that they could
not survive without me... I was - and here is the technical word I always
though I understood but never really grasped in actual life-reality... the
word is enabling... I enabled... I fed their low self-esteem and nurtured
their belief that they could not make it on their own... and no matter how
unconditionally I love, I could not give them what they needed... and my
giving them what they wanted kept them from looking inside, the only place
they could find what they needed... boom... just plain boom...

  that was the most challenging of thoughts of all to accept...

I don't have a happy ending to this story...

actually, I don't have any ending, at least not a complete one... for I am
still healing and the people I refer to are out of my reach today so I do not
know how they are making it, or if they are making it on their own... if their
life-pattern did not change, they found someone else to save them... if they
found the courage and strength to try life on their own, as I hope, then I
hope they've survived... and unfortunately... it's not a story...

 it's the life I've lived these past five years...

I've learned that some people don't believe they can make it through life on
their own... that they believe they not only want desperately to love and be
loved, but that they would die if it did not happen... fearing death, they will
literally take the life of someone else believing that's the only way they will
survive... this is the extreme circumstance I write about...

but on differing levels, someone obsessed, someone stalking another person
for any reason also believes they must somehow possess that person... that
they must somehow control that person... that their life and their desires are
more important than anything, even anothers... that is not love, that is
obsession... and obsession is an addiction to a thought or feeling... and like
any addiction can reach a point of being disabling or dangerous... most times
the thing one is addicted to will do the person no good - and much harm...

people do become addicted to other people... and when this happens, the
person who is the object of the addiction can do no good for the addicted,
or obsessed person... in fact, the person who is the object of the obsession,
someone being stalked, is the very thing the obsessed person must learn to
live without... we'd not give an alcoholic alcohol... it is just as detrimental
for a stalker to believe they can have contact with the person they stalk -
unless they truly overcome their addiction by finding what they need inside...

so... if you follow my reasoning... and if my reasoning is correct... the best
thing you can do for someone obsessed with you is to break all contact...
and hopefully they will not find another to obsess over... hopefully they
will somehow discover obsession is not a healthy way to think or feel or be...
hopefully they will learn the difference between obsession and love...

obsession may be born of love, but I've learned,
obsession is love without respect...

just as the drink is the last thing the alcoholic will believe if it says it's bad
for the person... the person being obsessed over is the last person who
can help the obsessed person see anything clearly... it would be like the
alcoholic trying to find the truth and clarity by drinking some more...

this may sound cold... it may sound unfeeling... it may even sound cruel...
but for me, it is truth... and for me, the only honest love is to not be
someone's bottle if someone chooses me to be that for them...

and so... this is why I now, as well as I can, ignore anyone who becomes
obsessed with me... and I experience that right now and have for some time
online... this is another healing I am here to explore and accomplish... how to
co-exist on the web, where it is relatively impossible to hide once you have
established a "home" and once your written personality is known...

while I learned the lesson in the physical world offline, I am learning this
web lesson right now with others being stalked and from others who are
stalking or at least appear obsessed with getting my attention, or with
getting something, from me... maybe approval?... whatever they seek from
me, I think it's something they must and truly can only find inside..

I welcome and would appreciate any further thoughts... advice... counsel...

I want to thank my friend for inspiring this by sharing the personal challenge
and the pain... for me is is painful to feel I must restrict my creativity and
the sharing of myself because some feel they must somehow have me or
control me - or destroy me if they can not possess or control...

may all people learn that they are whole and beautiful within themselves...
and then, may we feel the profound desire to share that becomes love
without survival-dependancy, without possession, without control, and without
wanting any more than the happiness of the other... with mutual respect...

and if so blessed, may we be further blessed to share some of it because both desire this, not because one believes they must have it...

honest love, ric

"it's hard to find a new dream...
with an old one in your eyes"
~Gary Moore~



NEXT BEAT

---

MAINGATE     HOME     GARDENS     KITS     LIFE     JOURNALS     WORK     FAREWELL

---

Candor Communications    ©2000