“A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person”
Dave Barry quotes (American Writer and Humorist best known for his weekly newspaper column. b.1947)
Yesterday's post I shared the day KavinCoach talked to me about moving worms off the sidewalk after it rains. Comments came in that people were either ridiculed or didn't know the significance of rescuing worms. I actually spent almost an entire session discussing worm rescues. Why was this significant?
KavinCoach pointed out that how we treat those that can not repay or benefit us in anyway indicate what type of person we are by nature. Confusing part for ACoNs is the narcissistic parents are often charming to waiters, or almost anyone except their children. I didn't understand that all people were source for the type of approval craved by narcissistics. So KavinCoach used the examples of worms because worms did not give what Ns need and many subjects were high trigger areas for me. We talked about how different people I encountered as a child would treat worms caught out of the ground after it rains. Most people would step around them or ignore them. Some people would actually step on them and a few compassionate people would gently pick them up and put them safely back in the soil. It is a gesture of an unsung hero to protect those that can not protect themselves. I first saw this comment on a poster with a man's hand holding a baby bunny: “You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.” ~ Forbes http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/28/judge-character/ I struggled with knowing who the bad guys were in my life. The Stockholm Syndrome affected my perception of people in my childhood. I felt confused because I thought of myself as bad and my abusers behavior understandable because of my badness. KavinCoach used the example of saving the worms to help me see who was messed up in my childhood. I learned, it wasn't me.
Photograph By Golnar Motevalli, I can't find who put together the Honor poster. Found it on multiple sites including Snopes someone trying to see if it is photochopped. The picture is real. The thought rocked my perception of my childhood.
5 comments:
I was, right up until my recent NC, ridiculed for my love of animals. When I briefly had my 1st dog as a young child (he was given away) I was mocked for kissing him on the head. By the time my 2nd dog came along I knew enough to kiss her when no one was looking, but then I got mocked for crying when she was killed by a car. They even blamed her death on me because I just happened to be the one that let her out that morning. I was punished by being the one that burned her body.
I was shocked when I left home and discovered lots of people plant kisses on their dogs, cats and even birds. As you can imagine, these days it's a kiss fest at my house!
BTW Wait staff LOVE my NF, except the poor lady that overheard him making fun of her Asian accent. He referred to her as a "nutter". This coming from a man who has a heavy British accent after 60 years in this country!
More validation from my friend Ruth!
I love both of those pictures.
This is a very moving post. Thanks for writing it. I smother my dogs in kisses, and try to usher bugs in the house out the door whenever possible. Moving worms off sidewalks, wow, that sets a new compassion bar for me ;-)
My first dog had to be "gotten rid of." I don't remember the reason, but I remember I made a long-distance phone call to my grandmother without permission to ask her if she could take him. I was yelled and screamed at for that, told I was gonna have to pay for the call. I cried and cried, but it didn't matter to them. My second dog, my mother liked, but when she died from a heart condition, they didn't tell me. I was in high school and very busy with schoolwork and band. They just waited for me to miss her and then told me she was put down. I had a cat in college, and after I got married and had a baby, I was overwhelmed with potty training and taking care of the cat litter, so my parents took her. "Something" happened to her, but I think there were lies involved. My dad said a snake got her, but my mother said she thought some neighborhood dogs got her. I don't know. The dog I have now, my mother once noted how "attached" he is to me (he was a rescue). I can't help wonder if it's jealousy, since when she would pet him, she would almost hold him against her leg to keep him from leaving, or what. But he certainly was never welcome at their house. He was grudgingly allowed to stay in the utility room. My dad had wanted to put him out in a pen in the garden one time, but we didn't want to do that. Couldn't understand why he couldn't stay in the utility room again, so they relented and let him stay in. Good thing, too -- rains that night flooded the area they'd wanted to put him.
When I was little I was forced by NM to collect slugs in the garden (that might have eaten the plants), and then kill them by smashing them with a huge rock. I suggested taking them away to the woods and letting them free. It was not an option. When I see slugs nowadays, this horrible memory still haunts me... I still feel their bodies being crushed under the rock I hold.
I am still unable to kill spiders or flies in my apartment. I rather collect them and put them outside where they are safe.
After my cat died (we were very close to each other), NM kept on mocking me that I cried and then started a monologue about how evil he was.
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