I chase emotional chaos in an effort to ease the feelings of loneliness. When being involved with emotional chaos only seems to exacerbate the feelings of being lonely. Because, it brings about the emotion of feeling obsessed with a social situation. It seems like when the social situation resolves itself, I end up feeling alone. During the process of living inside a chaotic situation, I feel like there is a puzzle in my life. I’m left trying to find a solution to heal the chaos. Bringing about feelings of being alive, but also lowering me into confusion and sadness. I meet these kinds of people along the path, taking me through the world. They have an amazing ability to pull me into their situation. Appealing to the large amounts of empathy that seem to be part of my personality. A lot of the empathetic emotion coming from the family I was born into. But, I also believe much of the feelings are brought about through living with a disability. Having cerebral palsy helps me identify with people who believe they have been confronted with unfair situations. I think being born with my disability could be looked upon as an unfair break in life. Many times, I forget to reflect on the concept of looking at what people do with the unfortunate situations they might be challenged with. Some look them in the face, while some use their story to manipulate other people.
Manipulation seems to be a challenging concept to completely understand. Knowing that some people in the world are blessed with the ability to easily recognize manipulators. I don’t feel like I have been given the talent, in abundance. Instead, I find myself questioning if someone is manipulating, even when I suspect it to be true. Hoping for the best of intensions in someone else, has always felt like a worthwhile quality. But, trying to achieve that quality feels less positive when I have been tricked into thinking someone is good-hearted. I often find myself wanting to help someone find their way out of trouble. Take an unfortunate circumstance and work their way into a better place. The feelings of mine, led me to earning a college degree in psychology. There was such fascination for me, in trying to find methods for turning around challenging situations. After all, I had already been spending my life attempting to ease the physical difficulties of my disability. Even with my degree, I have found it challenging to understand the differences between someone who wants to fight, and those who want to use their misfortune. I’m starting to realize that understanding that difference might be the key to a happier life for myself. It would help me stop chasing a manipulator down into darkness, hoping they will stumble upon a desire to change their lives. Chasing them into that darkened chaos has again, bit me in the backside.
My life had been lived with a love for chaos. For years, I indulged in pornography and sexual fantasizing. Two things that caused chaos throughout my entire world. They led me to having an unpredictable personality, making it challenging for people to interact with me, so chaos has been nothing new. I have found though, as I work successfully of ridding the behavior causing emotional chaos from my world, I continue pursuing it in others. Maybe, filling an emptiness I’m feeling along my journey of healing. Knowing I was involved with addictive behaviors that caused chaos in my life and others, also means I was involved with manipulative behaviors. Wanting to get my ‘fix’ required having a complicated relationship with the truth. It’s almost as if I’m feeling like manipulators, who live in and cause chaos, are the people I deserve to surround myself with. Believing we are like-minded people, and even with my strides toward healing my negative behaviors, I’m not good enough to be cared for. But, if I can help someone who might have taken a similar path, maybe it will help me feel more complete. The entire thing feels pretty convoluted. Leading me to believe the healing journey has ups and downs attached where I least expect them to arrive. I have been told, I can’t change people, and those are words I would be helped, to make real. It might be an important aspect in slowing my longing for emotional chaos.
The other side of emotional chaos feels like sadness. Being left to work through emotions that don’t feel so good. Emotional manipulation and chaos can feel exciting and occupying of emotional attention, but they can suck the life out of someone. For me, it came down to being absent of the ability to accept things at face value. When someone tells me something, which causes a red flag, it’s probably best to believe the individual. Without allowing their story to cover up the choices the person has made for themselves. I get caught up in believing if they were shown some support, things would get better for everyone. It feels like that belief, while good and positive, can be used to manipulate. Then, I’m right back into the world of emotional chaos. Hoping I can do something to help a situation beyond my abilities to influence. If I had been healthy enough to believe the things I was hearing and taking them at face value, I would have walked away, long ago. I got caught up in wanting to play the hero, in wanting to be accepted, and escape feeling lonely. I didn’t have a plan in place, allowing me to feel the strength to walk away from the situation. Which, is part of the traits a manipulator looks for in a person. Because, without some level of desperation for acceptance, an emotional game player gets left without a game to play.
There seems to be inherent desperation in having a disability. The physical challenges of cerebral palsy raise above those of someone typically developed. I have been looked upon different from my peers and the world at large. The emotional pain of being different has caused feelings of social desperation. It has felt more difficult to feel social acceptance throughout my journey in the world. I think it’s important to admit, sometimes the emotions of desperation are stronger, while at other times, they might hardly be felt. Which, lends itself to the variable of when a manipulator enters my sphere. If the feeling of social desperation remains at a low point, it would seem my craving for emotional chaos would be low, as well. On the flip side of the situation, when my social desperation might be vibrating at a high level. The emotional manipulator would sense an opening to enter my world. Using my fear of being alone as a weapon gaining influence into my decision-making process. The high level of social desperation causes a cascading of emotion, when someone shows interest in me, like I’m walking through a desert, and someone shows up carrying food and water. An important question becomes the figuring out the mystery of lessening the feelings of social desperation. Trying to minimize the crying out for attention and acceptance.
It feels like attempting to minimize social desperation is a multifaceted proposition. Keeping in mind that having a disability will always add another layer to the goal of minimizing the desperation being felt. I think the process of moving towards healing lies in more effort. Working diligently at the things, which often times have me feeling uncomfortable. It requires the opposite of feeling like a victim. Because, the feeling of being victimized often leads directly to some form of desperation. I know there have been times in my life when I felt like I needed someone. Like this person was the only person who had the ability to help me, or make me feel better inside my life. Causing me to all but emotionally beg them to continue being a part of my world. It seems important to consider, those feeling of wanting to emotionally beg, might not have been all my doing. The other person might have found a target in me, because of my emotional desperation, and worked me into feeling I couldn’t do without their attention. The situation turns into an emotionally chaotic situation. The path to getting better seems to be recognizing the emotions inside myself. Understanding the times in life when emotional desperation might be prevalent and make myself more cautious about new people entering my world. Healing also seems to require a diminishing of the victim mentality I can fall into and trying to look more impartially at the words and actions of others. The process might minimize the amount of chasing that familiar feeling of emotional chaos.
A Journey With Cerebral Palsy 