I haven't always been this nice...

I haven't always been this nice to myself. It has taken me years to build a rapport with my inner voice and be able to believe in myself. I could say in the fall that I really had confidence in myself, what I do as a profession, and as a person in general. I began to get comfortable with who I am and what I believe in despite the fact that other people constantly try to change me to fit their mold.  I came across this wonderful quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson,

“Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”

When I think about it, I have been misunderstood my whole life, and for most of my life I've tried really hard to deny that part of myself and be the same as everyone else, or at least what everyone else wanted me to be. With different people I was a different me. That became very tiring. Eventually I just had to break away from that, discover who I was and accept it. 27 years later I think I started getting to that place. At 28 I got there. I can truly say that I became comfortable with who I am...all aspects of who I am. Even though some of those aspects may greatly challenge the beliefs and attitudes of others. I don't fling it around in their faces, but I know in my heart that it's okay to be who I am. I found great comfort in that and a huge weight was lifted from my soul.

Now at 29 that wonderful confidence is being inundated with negativity. Without revealing too much, I will just say that there are some people in the world who are too power hungry to have a heart. They are too involved with their own selfish deeds to give a care about any person genuinely. Me being the kind of woman that I am, a fighter for the rights of myself and others, an advocate for those who cannot or will not advocate for themselves...have found myself at odds with a power hungry and evil person. What makes it more difficult is that this person is in a position of power and they are using it to try to beat me down. They try to rip my confidence to shreds, cause me to doubt myself, and are trying to make me want to just give up on this dream that I have worked towards my whole life. I hate to admit that there have been times that I felt that this person might be winning.

Thankfully though, I have some really amazing friends, family, and husband. These are the people who have kept my hope afloat through all this. I'm finding that this person has only put a little chink in my armor, but I am still the same person and still standing strong. In the end I will not go down without a fight and my confidence will remain intact. : )

So I read this article...

http://www.madinamerica.com/2012/02/why-anti-authoritarians-are-diagnosed-as-mentally-ill/

There are a couple parts that describe me almost perfectly.

Anti-authoritarians question whether an authority is a legitimate one before taking that authority seriously. Evaluating the legitimacy of authorities includes assessing whether or not authorities actually know what they are talking about, are honest, and care about those people who are respecting their authority. And when anti-authoritarians assess an authority to be illegitimate, they challenge and resist that authority—sometimes aggressively and sometimes passive-aggressively, sometimes wisely and sometimes not.

Many people with severe anxiety and/or depression are also anti-authoritarians. Often a major pain of their lives that fuels their anxiety and/or depression is fear that their contempt for illegitimate authorities will cause them to be financially and socially marginalized; but they fear that compliance with such illegitimate authorities will cause them existential death.

I've been kind of dealing with this issue lately. I think the hardest part about dealing with an authority figure that I don't respect is hearing what some people tell me about how to deal with it. Basically they simply tell me to deal with it and get over it...that I have to comply with these incompetent rulers just because they are in power. But I am innately unable to accept that. Just hearing the words is like someone stabbing me in the heart. Honestly, for me to follow someone or something blindly and without question is like feeling my soul die. My conscience cannot accept it. I want to do good in the world and to help others and when idiotic, power hungry people get in the way of that the advocate side of me wants to trump their authority fighting for those who cannot fight for themselves. At the same time I know it is a potentially great sacrifice for me to go on this kind of mission.

So what to do? Give up the passion or continue to fight? People who give up don't make change in the world. If on my death bed I look back at my life could I really be satisfied if I spent my whole life rolling over in blind obedience? I don't know if I'm capable of that, but I know I can't just think of myself either.

Perhaps what I need to do is learn how to play the game...learn the politics so I can do what needs to be done without always getting myself into trouble.

I don't know if I will ever understand the mind of an evil person.

I don't blog because I think people care what my thoughts are. Honestly, I doubt many care at all. I guess it's kind of my way to make my thoughts immortal...to show evidence somewhere out there that I existed.

Last night I had a dream that my cat, Derby, came back. Then he gave birth to a litter of 4 kittens. What was funny is how surprised I was that Derby turned out to be a girl and this whole time I thought he was a boy. Then I decided to keep one of the kittens, just in case I lost Derby again. It was an all white kitty with a cream colored spot on his chest. Then the freaky thing was that two of the kittens decided to commit suicide so they threw their bodies up against the garage and killed themselves. It was so sad. And in my dream I had kids, 2 of them, and then they asked me why the kittens committed suicide and I didn't know what to tell them.

I'm awfully curious about whether someone ever truly "gets over' the loss of someone they love. My grandpa passed away only a little over 3 years ago and still I cry sometimes when I think of him. I still miss him just as much.

I concur...