Pulling away: Part two
Lately I've been flipping through my offline journal (two hard sided shiny black books). Aside from the year and a half I wrote in them before I started blogging, the majority of my entries come from:
(a) when Christa left for Oz,
(b) when I moved to Toronto back in September (and took a break from blogging), and
(c) the past two weeks.
These are also the time periods when I didn't blog much. The difference isn't in how much I've been writing, but in where the writing goes. Like Ian, I'm a compulsive writer.
But lately, I've noticed this growing divide in myself between public and private thoughts. I touched on this a little in the post from the other day.
It extends beyond this blog. I've felt myself pulling away from others in the last few months in ways that worry me.
All my worries, doubts, fears and such are getting locked away. They aren't going away. I'm just finding that I don't need to talk about them with other people to feel better. I can work them out on my own. And more than that, I feel a need to.
This worries me because for a long time I bought into what modern culture says about talking about problems. We're taught over and over that if anything is bothering you, you should talk to somebody about it. We're taught that if you're not talking about it, you're not dealing with it. That it will fester and get worse.
There's a lot of value in this. If you have a problem that you can't deal with on your own, one that is harming your quality of life, then by all means you should talk to somebody. Maybe a professional. Maybe a trusted friend. There should be no shame in that. Doing so isn't a sign of weakness. Recognizing these times is a sign of wisdom. And opening up and talking during these times is a sign of strength.
Like most converts, I took this to an extreme it was never meant to. I came to think that anytime anything was bothering me, I needed to talk about it with somebody before I could be okay. Believing it made it true.
I was like a man with perfectly good legs who insisted he needed crutches to walk. It was the crutches that made me weak.
The reality was that I didn't require others to help me work through the things that bothered me. I could do it myself, but had come to believe I couldn't. Not that I could have articulated this, or even agreed with you if you told me what I was doing.
Then something happened. Christa left.
(a) when Christa left for Oz,
(b) when I moved to Toronto back in September (and took a break from blogging), and
(c) the past two weeks.
These are also the time periods when I didn't blog much. The difference isn't in how much I've been writing, but in where the writing goes. Like Ian, I'm a compulsive writer.
But lately, I've noticed this growing divide in myself between public and private thoughts. I touched on this a little in the post from the other day.
It extends beyond this blog. I've felt myself pulling away from others in the last few months in ways that worry me.
All my worries, doubts, fears and such are getting locked away. They aren't going away. I'm just finding that I don't need to talk about them with other people to feel better. I can work them out on my own. And more than that, I feel a need to.
This worries me because for a long time I bought into what modern culture says about talking about problems. We're taught over and over that if anything is bothering you, you should talk to somebody about it. We're taught that if you're not talking about it, you're not dealing with it. That it will fester and get worse.
There's a lot of value in this. If you have a problem that you can't deal with on your own, one that is harming your quality of life, then by all means you should talk to somebody. Maybe a professional. Maybe a trusted friend. There should be no shame in that. Doing so isn't a sign of weakness. Recognizing these times is a sign of wisdom. And opening up and talking during these times is a sign of strength.
Like most converts, I took this to an extreme it was never meant to. I came to think that anytime anything was bothering me, I needed to talk about it with somebody before I could be okay. Believing it made it true.
I was like a man with perfectly good legs who insisted he needed crutches to walk. It was the crutches that made me weak.
The reality was that I didn't require others to help me work through the things that bothered me. I could do it myself, but had come to believe I couldn't. Not that I could have articulated this, or even agreed with you if you told me what I was doing.
Then something happened. Christa left.
