By Ox Drover
Someone sent me a forwarded e mail the other day that I had seen before, but this time, as I read the sweet story about how to tell the differences between heaven and hell, I started to think about my own life in relationship to this story. You may have heard it before, but here is the story.
A man was walking along with his dog one day down a pleasant road and he realized that both he and the dog were dead. The road was nice but he began to be tired, hot and thirsty. He came around a bend and saw the most beautiful golden gates, with a kindly looking person standing there. The gate was surrounded by flowers and he thought how beautiful it looked. He approached the kindly looking man and asked where he was. The man softly touched his arm, reassuring him, and then said, “Step into Heaven my friend, you are safely here.” The man started toward this wonderful golden gate, but just before he stepped through., the kindly stranger at the gate said, “Oh, your dog can’t go with you, he has no soul.”
The man looked at his dog, standing faithfully beside him in death as he had in life, and sadly turned away from the entrance to Heaven and started walking down the road again. Soon he came to a very plain looking, rustic gate with a rustic man sitting by the gate.
He approached the man by the gate and said “My dog and I are very thirsty and we would love a drink of water if you could provide us with some.” Of course the rustic man invited the man into his lane, gave him and the dog both a bowl of water and said, “welcome.”
When the man asked “Where am I?” The rustic old man said “Well, son you’re in Heaven” The man was confused and asked about the glittering golden gates he had passed because they wouldn’t let his dog in with him, and the rustic old saint said, “Oh, yea, that’s Hell, we use him to screen out the riff raff. We don’t want anyone here who would desert his dog or a friend for what appears to be the golden gates.”
I got to thinking of that man as an analogy of my life, and I realized that so many times I have deserted my best friend (myself) for what appeared a “golden gate” of the easy path. I have gotten off the Road to Healing long before I even approached taking care of myself. I have entered into the false Heaven because it looked so easy, so wonderful, and I have left my best friend — myself–standing alone out side while I entered into this wonderland of deceit and self deception—again and again.
This time, I am determined to bypass the “quick and easy” solutions and to stay on the road to Healing and to take my best friend with me, to care for her ”¦ she deserves my love and nurturing. No one who will not recognize that my best friend is valuable, that I cannot do less than respect her, deserves a place in my life. No one else can take responsibility and make me happy without her. She is ME.
You know it!
“Cause the love that you gave that we made wasn’t able to make it enough for you to be open wide. No! And every time you speak her name, does she know how you told me you’d hold me until you died? UNTIL YOU DIED? AND YOU’RE STILL ALIVE! So I’m here to remind you of the mess you left when you went away. It’s not fair to deny me of the the cross I bear that you gave to me. You OUGHTA KNOW.”
Oh what the hell, here’s the rest of the song:
“You seem very well.
Things look peaceful
I’m not quite as well
I thought you should know.
DID YOU FORGET ABOUT ME, MR. DUPLICITY?
I hate to bug you in the middle of dinner.
It was a slap in the face how quickly I was replaced
And are you thinking of me when you f*ck her.
Cause the joke that you laid in the bed, that was me, and I’m not gonna fade as soon as you close your eyes. AND YOU KNOW IT! And every time I scratch my nails down someone else’s back, I hope you feel it? WELL CAN YOU FEEL IT?”
Repeat Chorus
(P.S. I nailed the song in the audition, but I didn’t get the gig).
Jen, I didn’t mean to imply that every parent or person who does something “thoughtless” is abusive or sociopathic, but that people who continually expect others to “clean up after” them and/or their kids are imposing on others. Some psychopaths have this as a life pattern and some don’t, but also some “normal” people are thoughtless and even have a pattern of wanting others to clean up after them.
Teaching your children to be responsible (at age appropriate times) for cleaning up their own messes, rather than their step mother or bio-parents, is being a responsible parent.
People (and I was one) who continually “clean up” after others are enabling the others to shirk their responsibilities and to not have to meet the consequences of their own poor decisions or behaviors.
I am not my adult sons’ maid, nor are they my “hired hands,” but we work together and try to be considerate of each other’s space and the “chores.” If my sons threw a party for their friends and left the dishes for me to clean up, I would be quite irritated, and I wouldn’t ‘expect them to clean up after I went into the kitchen and made a big mess or a party for my friends. CONSIDERATION for others is the name of the game in any relationship, I think.
S O S- “Too friendly; Too flirtatious; Too caring; Too generous”—counterintuitive but SO SO true in the case of my SP.
Current “Heartless” by Kanye West seems to give the male point of view.. HEARTLESS- we can guess what kind of person (hint: SP) he’s referring to!!!
“Too friendly; Too flirtatious; Too caring; Too generous—” also genuine real traits of the victims …
In the beginning I thought he was genuine too. But I guess too much of a Good thing is just that. And as a victim, I didnt have the boundaries or the knowledge about genuine and real IMPOSTERS.
now Im much much more selective and aware of what TOO much friendliness means to an S/P and what too much friendliness said about my personality : VULNERABLE TARGET . Duh me!!!!
Dear Learn-ed,
Yep, THEY COME ON THAT WAY, and we RESPOND that way.
We pick it up like a hungry dog grabs a bone. AT least WE DID do that, but not any more.
Even before my husband’s death I had started to “get it” about NEW people being BPDs when you met them and before they knew your last name, they were “making application” to be your BEST and CLOSEST FRIEND.
Oxy – Im getting ready to head out…but for me, I think I wasnt RESPONDING that way…I was genuinely that way. Many a time I was told “youre too friendly” — it always bothered me to hear that. I thought how can one ever be “too friendly” in life — boy did I find out the answer to my question hard way once I “Friendly forgave” and stayed with the extox.
Ive always, very naturally, found myself being friendly to anyone and everyone. TALK ABOUT AN UNKNOWN FLAW I HAD. But the positive experiences I had from being that way, far outweighed the negative. I know Ive actually helped people by being “friendly” – but Ive also hurt myself by being “too friendly” with the wrong people.
It was one of the character trait differences i noticed between us. He never wanted to “help” anyone and one time there was an auto accident we witnessed and I said can you pull over theres a child in the back of one of the cars…MY INSTINCT… he said “No way, they will call 911” – I could see the baby crying and the mom in shock in front seat. Because traffic was stopped, I got out. I talked to the Mom through the window and distracted the baby until ambulance got there. THE LEAST I COULD DO..
When I got back to the car, he was FURIOUS – said I was stupid for getting involved, etc. etc.
To this day, this very day, I actually question myself about whether my natural response to do what I did or want to do is healthy or unhealthy. He said his life is much less complicated when he just tends to himself, takes care of himself and not others.
It made me stop and think about the difference in our choices. Such a fine line between helping another human being and causing chaos for yourself because of that choice. As well as not ever helping or giving humanity to others. Just venting…. gotta get going now…. thx
Dear Learn-ED,
YOUR RESPONSE WAS NORMAL, his was NOT. You did the right thing. ANY good person would do the same in my estimation, though there are others with his idea “don’t get involved.” Not all people who “don’t get involved” are Ps but some are, as you have shown with your P’s attitude. What you did was KIND AND CARING, and what I think most if not all of us here would have done. You didn’t “get involved” what you did was to COMFORT someone when you could see they needed it. HE did NOT care that they needed comfort, if he even was AWARE that they did. He could NOT empathize with the woman or her child, you could and did, and responded in an empathetic way, because YOU knew how YOU would have felt in a similar situation.
What I meant about us “responding” to the “over friendly” people (in the past) was that when someone was very nice to us (“super nice” like the Ps are at first) we WANT to believe it, and pounce on this “Mr/Ms Nice Person” and accept that they are genuine, even when they come on “too strong” for a new acquaintance. I had finally gotten to the point with “new acquaintances” that I was a bit leery if they “came on too strong” and had actually seen later that some of these “super dooper nice” people turned out later to be obvious BPDS or PPDs I was a bit leery of the “new” people acting that way. I just wasn’t cautious enough when my XBF who was a P came on “too strong” at first—-I should have been, but I was NEEDY for that attention at the time, and didn’t suspect what I should have, that he was out to “hook” me with the “bum’s rush” of attention. I just jumped on it like a hungry dog goes for a bone and grabbed on to it. Only to find out, it was NOT REAL. IT WAS FAKE, MADE UP OF MY FANTASY.
Oxy – I think that neediness is what makes a victim. When we sit and try to figure out the “why me?” or “why him/her?” it comes down to thinking someone else has what we NEED. When you NEED approval, love, a kind word, attention, you are at the mercy of the next person who comes along. But what comes along is not a healty person, healthy people are not generally attracted to neediness, they’re attracted to other healthy people. What you get is at best an enabler, at worst an abuser. When we learn to give ourselves approval, love, kindness, and attention we become healthy and can see clearly.
Midnight,
Yep, you said in a FEW words what takes me tons of them!