Introducing Myself A Bit More…

I said I would present the last two decades, so here goes :-)

In the last couple of years in living at home I realised that I was literally lost, had no goals, no aspirations, but I had dreams,. Like my father however, I wished and wished and wished but never took the steps to pull these wishes into reality. My parents wanted others to save them from their misery and I learned the same mentality (parents, what you do speaks volumes more than what you say, fuckin’ remember that!)

I learned that wanting others to save you was normal behaviour, however the moment I became mature and left home I knew no one would do that, but I never changed the thought patterns that fueled it. When I said I was lost, I not only speak physically or mentally, but also spiritually. I had a belief in God, but not religion, and for the first time in my life, God, came looking for me.

My dad was out one day and met this random couple working in their garden, he had a chat with them and that weekend they visited for a cup of tea. Odd thing is their adopted sons were the older brothers of my best friend in early high school. I spoke mostly with the older of the two and he told me about God but not in a cult way, he never preached and never demanded I accept God or else. It was oddly settling because in my youth I met actual cult leaders who terrified me, and people I knew were heavily into the occult. People can believe what they want, but that stuff was never for me.

The following week I spent the day with this family and had a great time, I almost cried the entire day because I wasn’t abused at all, and trust me, I was expecting it, but they just accepted me without prejudice. We had dinner and I knew that night that if I was going accept God into my life through his Son then that night was it. I did that and never looked back. Seriously why would I return to my previous life before that! Because God believes in me I was able to start believing in myself, but I was still stuck in detrimental though patterns. People have said “How can you still have issues, didn’t God heal everything in you?” My answer that always surprised them was “Yeah, he did, but I’m responsible for my thoughts, they are mine to change!” So, I said that nonchalantly but it took years to actually believe it and see it.

After five years of living at home I finally moved out with a close friend who tried hard to teach me how to live independently. Man, he struggled because I made it next to impossible to be taught anything because even though I was a f*ck up, I was 100% invested in staying that way! That’s right I couldn’t see a way out because I wouldn’t see a way out!

Some drive began to surface so I finished my education with great internal difficulty (due to negative mental conditioning - external and internal) and managed to get accepted into a university to learn design and photography.

I did learn that you have to buy your own food, pay the bills, and work as a unit to run a house better, because these were life things my parents kept from me, and I am eternally grateful to him for trying to help me for a long ass 12 months. This was during my first year of university.

Referring back to being a f*ck up, I was too lazy to buy or own a reliable car. I borrowed my dad’s at time but it was a shitbox, however it got me from A to B. When I didn’t have dad’s car I would take a bus that would arrive 30 minutes late to my first class, then would head back home (90 minutes) away at around 3:30. When the bus service wasn’t running I would travel there with an old friend who also lived nearby and was studying at the same campus, however many times he would piss off without me hence I would need to take the 12:30am train home that would arrive at 2:00am, then wake up at 6:00am to take the bus again.

I did this for almost 12 months and i whinged the entire year. When I think of it now, it taught me resilience because I was broke, would need to sometimes sleep at the train station then go to class the next day, get no sleep, try and study, and also travel 950 minutes per week. now if I didn’t have the victimhood thinking, I would have saved money, bought a car, and asked my fellow students to stay with them if needed.

Would I change any of this from 2002? Not on your life. It taught me a lot about myself, how decisions affect you, and no choice you make is idle as each one will have consequence. As I wasn’t in the vicinity of my parents or other negative people I found life weird and uncomfortable because I was so accustomed to abuse and no experiencing that my mind went searching for it.

In 2003 I moved closer to the university (a stone’s throw really) so I could attend class and actually socialise with my friends. the first six months were ok, I passed all my subjects, was living with a dude that was my age but unbelievable mature compared to me at the time, but we got along fine, and I found a church that at the time seemed like home. I was oh so wrong about that which you’ll read.

Mid 2003 I found the negative! I had a tendency to lie to protect myself and I could never keep my word, self-sabotage was my angle, and when I missed an important church meeting, boy was I vilified for it. I was kicked out of all ministry teams for 12 months and was exposed as a fraud to the entire church. I won’t go into that, but as I said I found my negative. This “relationship” lasted 13 years because I craved family and a negatively focused family was what I knew.

I was still so lazy, that I never searched for work, never changed my weight, whined about life constantly because no one would pull me out of it, and didn’t have a girlfriend. Seriously, who would date someone like that? For the next few years I had some serious breakthroughs and I learned a lot from my first relationship about how much of a horrible, self-obsessed person I was and I had no intention of changing as I thought (like my father did) that my perfection was unparalleled. I was living a dual life of narcissistic self-destruction and an absolute self perception of perfection with no external focus. it was quite hellish.

I understood from that time that I was seriously damaged and I was around the wrong people who reminded constantly of my internal distortions, but never tried to find the good and build upon that, mind you I didn’t either, I have narcissism so focusing on myself was easy as pie. Now that the acknowledgement of that had began to sink in I had to do something so in 2007 I had a major attitude change which I couldn’t maintain as I never dealt with the internal monologues, formed habits, coping mechanisms, and I never moved away from the negative influences, so within six months I was not back where I started but I wasn’t doing great.

Things slowly improved after mid 2009 where I could hold down some solid work, lose some weight, get married to a great woman, and develop friends that I actually loved being around.

What caused that change to begin? A realisation that I was not a victim, I have some control over my life, and I can change things if I want. These were only whispers in a room of booming amplifiers, but the important thing is they were there.

You can never change anything if you and others remind you only of the evil you do, that will only increase the strength of the evil, because where you focus your attention, there you will remain.

Fast forward to 2015 and I had my first major theatre performance in a pro-am theatre production of Mary Poppins. I was in previous amateur plays that didn’t compare to the work required for this. I acted in the role of George Banks, now what’s interesting is that the play itself is about him and the change he has over the course of the story, how fitting! Not only was the play the most fun I had in my life, I met a great group of musicians actors of all ages, competent production, sound, costume and sets team, but the director and all other managers were excellent. Granted, we had our fights, arguments and litigations but we all had the common goal of getting it out there for the public to enjoy. We had 14 sell-out shows.

The reason for the theatre story is that I came from a financially driven, dysfunctional, opportunistic, and negative religious organisation. Seeing how the play turned out and the common goal was met provided an excellent external viewpoint of what I was partaking in, so two weeks after the play had ended, I quit all ministry obligations and then within a month left the church.

I’ll conclude this in the next few entries, stay tuned friends