By Ox Drover
I got to thinking the other day about how our strength and ability to carry an emotional load of “stress” is sort of like a long-distance walk or ride or race. People who travel in various long distance endurance races, or just for their own purposes, have to limit the amount of weight that they carry. Some people who do long distances on foot even cut the handle off their toothbrushes to reduce the load they have to carry by even a fraction of an ounce.
If I had to carry a five pound sack of flour to our local post office, which is about three miles away from my farm, up and down several steep hills, I could do it without a great deal of time involved, but would probably leave me feeling that that five pound sack of flour was “pretty heavy” by the time I got there. I am sure by the time I got to the post office, I would be switching it from hand to hand pretty rapidly as it seemed to gain weight. I could probably even carry that five pound sack of flour as far as the nearest town, about 13 miles away, though I would sure be tired when I got there.
However, if I had to pick up a fifty-pound sack of horse feed and carry it to our local post office, I could probably do it, but I imagine it would take me several days to accomplish it. If I had to carry that fifty-pound sack of horse feed to town, I could probably do it as well, but I would be physically and mentally exhausted when I arrived there several weeks, or more, after I started.
It isn’t just the weight of what we have to “carry” in terms of a “load,” but also the distance we must carry it. When I was a kid I saw a western movie where the guy is crossing the desert and he has a pack with enough gold to make him rich for the rest of his life. Eventually, though, it becomes so heavy that he throws it away in order to get across the desert alive.
Psychopathic weight
As we go through our lives we all have stress to carry, and the weight of that stress can be pretty heavy, for example, a divorce or a death in the family, but we recover from carrying that heavy weight. We rest and recoup our strength, before we progress on further. With the psychopath adding not only weight to our stress level, but keeping the stress at a high level, both the weight and the distance (time) we must carry the stress becomes overwhelming.
We may find ourselves in the position of the prospector coming out of the desert with a pack filled with gold, where we have become so tired from the weight and the distance that we have carried something, even something valuable to us, that we have to throw it down and leave it in order to survive for one more step.
Sometimes we “throw down” our careers, our education, or even taking care of our own health because we are so stressed out and so tired from dealing with the psychopath that it seems we don’t have the energy to accomplish taking care of these things. We feel as if our very survival depends on dropping some of the “weight” of “things to do” off our backs immediately. We become distracted by the weight of the demands of our families, our children, our jobs, and our psychopaths that we drop the “gold”–in this case, ourselves, in an effort to reduce our stress and “survive.”
Lightening the load
The most important thing I think I have learned from the chaotic experiences I’ve had with the psychopaths is that I have to be in this for the long distance course. I have to reduce the stress and weight of the “things” I carry so that I have the strength and resources to keep on carrying the “gold—”myself—for the distance.
I have to quit trying to carry the burdens of others who would rather have me carry them than hoist their own packs on their own backs and assume responsibility for themselves. I have to quit carrying unnecessary trivia, and distinguish between important things I need and things that I can do without. When it comes to “shared responsibilities,” I have to do my share and expect others to do theirs, to demand it if necessary, and to use my judgment to decide what is a fair division of those shared responsibilities.
I’m in this life for the long haul, not just for a sprint! So I’ve got to adjust the weight of my burdens accordingly and put my own long term best interest and my ability to survive foremost in my own mind and heart!
kimmie, Ive taken them out of their frames, as I cant send glass, but have kept the card backing. Im sure you can find a cheap frame for each of them,{only 2}Their only small, {20×26 cm.each}
I will email Donna today re you giving me your email add.
Then, I can email you to get your postal add.so I can post them to you!
Love, Gem.XX
Ox Drover,
I get this post totally. I had to laugh at the reference to “unloading the gold”. Yes, to us it is gold. It is all the money we have.
And, the “takers” want to take our last ten bucks.
I think I can equate a story to the movie about the guy dragging the gold across the desert. My youngest son’s dad was so terrible that I agree to let him walk off with everything. I told him if he leaves me alone then the “stuff” is his.
He claimed that everything was his. Well, technically it was his because he bought it, but remember that I paid for our living expenses. He saw his money as play money.
He dominated me to get me to sign over the title to my station wagon. Then he filled it to the brim.
I did not watch him pack. I was so relieved that he was leaving. Finally leaving! He packed up all the prized possessions in my station wagon. And he drove across state lines, from Milwaukee to Detroit.
I can imagine the problems he must have ran into. A station wagon full to the brim with electronics and power tools.
I can imagine the problems he ran into driving into Detroit with that loot! The cops were probably looking hard at him. The hoodlums were probably looking harder.
I’ll bet every hoodlum was sizing him up. He must have been too afraid to leave the car. I’ll bet he was too afraid to take a potty break and was peeing in a bottle. He was probally afraid of the police for the same reason. He was probably ducking and dodging EVERYONE!
He unloaded the stuff quickly.
He then started calling me. I didn’t know that taking away my phone card would prevent him from using it, cause all he needed to know was the phone card numbers.
He ran up a $600.00 phone bill on my bill because he was calling me with harrassing phone calls.
I took him back!
He promised he would help me to get caught up on my bills. See I got behind when he closed out my bank accounts and ran off with the money, at the same time he ran off with the “stuff”.
I let him come back.
Why? I was so emotionally beat-up and self doubting. By this time I had been abused by men for 15 years.
He came back and did more abuse, including calling the police on me. I finally had the police remove him.
Ox Drover, I never thought of the ordeal he must have went through taking that treasure trove through Detroit! It does give me some satisfaction.
Even if he pee’d before he arrived at the city….he still had to stop at red lights….!
Jeannie
Dear Jeannie,
Darling we have to find SOMETHING to laugh about! Otherwise we would go around the bend and never come back….LOL
I am sure you probably dont’ remember the movie or TV show (I remember it being in black and white) about a man who was offered all the land he could walk around in one day, but he had to complete the circuit…of course as he walked he kept seeing better lands and kept on walking and walking and walking, and eventually he got back to the starting place, so all the land he had walked around was HIS, but he dropped dead on the spot. I think maybe it was a Twilight zone show…but he only needed 6 ft of land to bury himself in. GREED! That is what is motivation for the psychopaths. GREED, control and power. They would rather rule in hell than live in heaven!
Sure, we carry the stress for long times, sometimes, for decades, but we get so tired from carrying it that sometimes we throw away the gold just to lighten the load, but we have to look at how much stress we are carrying and what it is and lighten the load by getting rid of the psychopath, not the gold!
I’m glad that you escaped and are taking care of yourself more now. WE deserve to be cared for! We need to keep our strength for ourselves, not give it away to them. I’m glad that you can find some humor in it at this point! (((Hugs)))) and God bless.
Dear One Step, This may sound lame, but if you can’t afford to get away, perhaps you could spend your time off engaging in something creative. For instance try abstract painting, just two or three colors and some good watercolor paper. It is very therpatic, and the results might surprise you. Or if you enjoy phtography, make a point of going out to interesting neighbourhoods and just take pics of all that catches your eye. Then perhpas share the results with your distant freinds by email.
Maybe catch some local choir recitals over the holidays, and make a point of treating yourself to some of your favorite meals,long naps, and curled up with a really good book.
Being alone is certainly hard at times, but also so empowering, when you realize that you are safe, and at peace, and good to yourself.
If you haven’t read The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo series yet, well there goes the whole holiday, you will not be able to put it down. The heroine is sassy and you will want to cheer for her, and of course the villain is a spath.
Try not to focus on being alone and short of $$, but on how rich your ineer life is, and how you are the best company you could ask for. I know it sounds Pollyanna – ish, but it really has helped me enjoy my time alone, and not fear and loath it.
Peace, A
Here is a neat quote I just stumbled upon, somewhat apropo.
“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” : Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)
Very good quote Anitasee!!!
Dear Anitasee,
Thank you, that is priceless!
“….to be your own man is hard business…”
How true, how TRUE!!! “Owning yourself” PRICELESS!
As I said earlier in another post, I LOVE this,
“You might as well be YOURSELF
Everyone else is taken!”
Or Shakespeare,
“Above all things, to thine own Self be true,
Then follows it, as Night is to the Day,
Thou canst not then be false to any Man.”
or Kipling again;
“If you can keep your head, when all around
Are losing theirs,
And blaming it on you—”
Love,
MamaGemXX
Love it Mama Gem!!!
xx crze1!
anitasee – i am an artist. so none of you ideas sound facile. unfortunately my apt is not a good place to be – i have smoker neighbours and holing up here isn’t comforting – i am often running away from my apt.
but, i really need to do some different things. when i was in school i worked hard – and the only thing that could get me to disengage was to do something equally as challenging. i think i need something as different from my life as the spath experience has been, to recharge myself.
the girl with the dragon tattoo – originally titled ‘ the man who hated men’ – about pyschopaths. i saw the movie. she’s really damaged. nope, not a good idea for me, i don’t think.
i have mold allergies – have had to quit my choir because of that. churches are moldy here.
i would love to be doing many of the things you suggested – they were things in my life until the last year and a bit, and the things that are missing because of illness and the spath aftermath. I need safety inside and outside to do those things again. i need an adventure. a safe adventure. and to laugh.