Thursday afternoon.
I lay back in the reclining dentist chair. Time to add another crown. I reckon if we didn't have crowns, I'd have only gums where my molars root.
I'm always impressed how dentist staff can understand what I'm saying when I "talk" while they work in my mouth. My hygienist is especially adept at understanding the guttural language.
I actually like going to my dentist. I really love the staff. Always pleasant and cheerful. It's such an uplifting atmosphere. I don't like being drilled, etc. But, it's not too bad in the scheme of life.
Dr. Dentist walks in, his pleasant self. He points at my hand-and-wrist braces. "You going into a boxing match?" he jokes.
"I'm gonna box Trump up side the ears," I respond in kind, not knowing if Dr. Dentist is a Trump supporter or not.
"Oh my gosh. I know," he says. "I've quit listening to or reading the man for the most part. I just end up upset and agitated. He is who he is. Nothing I do will change him."
"Right," I reply.
~*~
Tuesday night, prior to Thursday.
I decide that beginning Wednesday I'd take a break from reading current politics, including Trump's bombastic tweets.
But Wednesday takes a different turn. I end up spending hours in my head working through thoughts regarding Trump, his supporters, media from all sides, and bottom lines setting off an angst that ricochets like a rouge ping-pong ball, internally bouncing like a confused compass needle. To add to that, I handle a couple stressful circumstances and then have two separate odd encounters with strangers in downtown Mt. Airy. I think, I'm surrounded by crazy people.
It was ending up a weird Wednesday, thus far.
I had gone to Mt. Airy to ride its Greenway. But by the time I arrive at the Greenway, I am exhausted. Not that I had much energy when the day started.
Carol, do you just go home and go to bed?
I remind myself that cycling through the woods often helps my physical and mental fatigue. I opt to ride.
Mother Nature works her magic. Anxiety melts. My body and mind are soothed. I see my groundhog friend and the two great herons that make Ararat River their home.
~*~
Dr. Dentist's words the next day, on Thursday, remind me of what I had decided on Tuesday night.
Friday.
I do okay with my politicalless and Trumpless endeavor.
I dedicate Saturday to a mountain day-trip and cycling on the New River Trail. It will take my entire focus. But it will be worth it, I hope.
~*~
Saturday morning.
Unfortunately I look at the news and read Trump's tweets blaming Puerto Rico for not doing enough to help themselves in their dire circumstances...ten days going at that point.
What. The. Fuck. I didn't think even Trump could sink this low.
I was stunned, but only momentarily.
This is Trump. This is what he is. He's a megalomaniac.
His words were cruel. Cruel words from a cruel, selfish, heartless, without-conscience, sliver-spooned-golden-toilet-sitting, interested-only-in-his-own-glorification liar.
I had viewed a couple videos the night before from Mayor Cruz. Yes, she sounded over the top. Yes, she sounded desperate. But it's an over-the-top, desperate situation. I thought she went too far with her genocide statement. But I couldn't criticize it or hold judgement against her. I have never lived through a disaster like Puerto Rico was dealing with. And they are headed into day ten! Ten days of this crap! 24/7.
Even, even, even if his verbal attacks toward Mayor Cruz were factually correct, it's still cruel and morally wrong for him to express those opinions while they're dealing with this shit. And it's ten days in! They're exhausted beyond anything most of us can imagine.
I haven't read or seen anyone disparage first responders. I've read just the opposite. Perhaps Trump is lying? Surely not.
And to blame Mayor Cruz and Puerto Rican "others" for wanting everything done for them and not being able to get their people to work together? My god. Talk about victim blaming.
And then for Trump to accuse the Mayor of colluding with the Democrats to make him and his administration look bad? This man doth project his own tactics, perhaps?
Poor Trump. He is the victim of the media and the opposing political party.
What an ass.
How can anyone with good conscience rationalize and support such an outwardly, cruel, inhumane son of a bitch?
You know how Carol. You did it. Wierwille. Martindale. Rivenbark. Knapp.
But maybe your conscience wasn't so good at those times.
~*~
My internal ping-pong ricochet is set in motion. Oh gawd. This is not where my energy should go. Energy expended again to getting Trump-nation out of my head.
I journal, and that helps, some. Hubby and I talk, and that helps, some. After I get on the road, I make a pit stop along Hwy. 52 and call my daughter. We talk, and that helps, some.
But it again takes Mother Nature to soothe my soul and body.
I arrive at the New River Trail in Galax. My cycling starts very slowly. My main symptoms this day are fatigue, pain radiating from my left hip to knee, tender palms, and my ongoing digestive issues. Add to those the anxiety regarding Trump and his loyalists. I take medicine for my tummy, begin my ride, and repeat to my body and mind - drop it. settle. woman on bike riding in woods. - endeavoring to simply be in the present.
I take in the scenery. The scents of autumn. The sound of my tires on gravel. The crunch of leaves. The sound of rapids in Chestnut Creek. The invisible breeze. Eventually I listen to music through my Bluetooth.
I shuffle thoughts examining my internal, ricocheting, ping-pong-ball response to Trump's words and his rationalists. Think of worst case scenarios. Accept worst case scenarios. Think of most-likely scenarios. Sideways. Upside down. Right side up. Distinguish "normal" from Trump's "abnormal" and how to stay grounded despite the "abnormal." Delineate facts from my own emotional filters. Endeavor to pinpoint what I feel and why.
Why does it bother me so? What can I do about any of this crap anyway?
Between it all I repeat - drop it. settle. woman on bike riding in woods.
After an hour and fifteen minutes, I take a thirty-minute break. I sit alone in the woods by the New River. The trees sway in the autumn breeze. Leaves float to the ground. The tangles in my mind clear. My heart settles. Fatigue and pain are relieved and so are my tummy issues. Two cyclists approach, and we have a fun-filled conversation.
As I start my trip back down the trail to Galax, I whisper, "I'd like to see Great Heron. And some deer."
A few minutes later I spy Great Heron standing tall in Chestnut Creek. I smile, content. Then I pump my fist, Yes! Teary-eyed and energized, my heart fills with gratitude. Mother Nature will not disappoint.
I see seven deer on my cycle-ride back.
Later, on my drive home along the Blue Ridge Parkway, I see nine more deer.
As I eat supper at an overlook - witnessing a sunset with pink, wispy, cotton candy clouds stretched over a blue-gray-purple canvas touching tops of mountains and dips of valleys - I feel whole, knowing the feeling will be fleeting but wanting so badly for it to never end.
October 1, 2017
September 29, 2017
Rebuilding...again & again...
I initially posted this as part of a blog entry on 9/23/17.
~*~
People act out for reasons. People make decisions for reasons. Reasons that probably go back generations both culturally and genetically. I think the majority, if not all, of those reasons are not to be minimized or dismissed. The only way to understand another's reasons (at least mostly) is to listen and to put ourselves in the other person's shoes as best we can.
"Reasons" do not excuse a person's accountability for their actions. But they help understand the "why" behind behavior.
After leaving The Way and my absolutist-thinking, I developed a motto: "There are no non-persons. There are no non-events." Meaning, that each individual is significant and each story worthwhile.
But then....John Knapp happened. I experienced something completely foreign to me. It shook my foundation probably more than even leaving a belief system after decades of being a true-believer. I had hired Knapp, a then-licensed mental health therapist specializing in spiritual abuse and cult recovery, to help me untangle the cult-anti-cult web in my head and heart. For the first year or so in, he did help. But then things slowly took a strange twist, landing in the bizarre. (After thought: Actually they were twisting all along. But I either didn't see the tangles, or rationalized them.)
Are there really no non-persons? Is my motto just another ideal that is a fantasy? How can a person intentionally lie over and over, in such a believable, convincing tone, seemingly without conscience? Can a person really have no conscience? If so, are they truly a "person?" How does my motto apply to the psychopath?
The Knapp experience was like an earthquake. My faith in humanity and those ideals which I wish existed but don't and probably never will (unless there really is a "new heaven and new earth" or some other life-form beyond death or this earthly plane) lay in rubble on the ground. Trust in my own intuitive sense, which I was in process of regaining after living doctrine-over-person for decades, was filled with smoke from the rubble. Who or what could I trust? How can even trust myself?
This reaction wasn't new to me. I had experienced similar when learning the truth about The Way and its leaders, about the lies and deceptions and using of people. But, in The Way, I hadn't experienced up-close-personal manipulative encounters with top leaders. I was more at a distance within the concentric layers of a cult. After Knapp, I better understood ex-Way (and any) person's responses to the up-close-personal psychopathic encounter.
As far as I know, The Way never lied about me. I was lied about at Greasespot Cafe, the ex-Way online forum. But only a few times, at least that I know about. There may have been more lies or rumors that never reached my eyes or ears. And I think the lies I know about were mistaken lies, for the most part, based in fear and projection, and perhaps in my responses to the circumstances in which I found myself. Circumstances that fell in my lap. But it was my decision to either discard what was in my lap, or weigh them and act. I chose the latter.
But Knapp. Knapp. He lied intentionally with a motive to destroy my reputation and to try to cover his own misdeeds, of which I later learned were multiple. After Knapp's initial gas-lighting and abuse, I learned that I was not the only person to have experienced Knapp's wrath and manipulations. But, at that time, I was the only client. (Sixteen months later, another client came forward privately.) And I was the only client whom Knapp tried to publicly smear after I blew a whistle and began coming forward with my story. He was partially successful. But not with those who know his pattern. (Note: Three years and four months after I filed a formal complaint, Knapp's professional Social Work license was revoked.)
Yet even with the evidence that others had similar Knapp encounters, it was hard to believe my bizarre Knapp scenario was real. I just couldn't wrap my head around the fact that Knapp could lie like he did. I still can't. I shake my head when I think about it, probably in an effort to shake it out of my head. I question if his whole life is an intentional lie, concerned only about himself but guised in a concern for others.
I've moved forward since Knapp's smear campaign in September, 2011. Yet it still lurks and can trigger some PTSD-type responses when I encounter certain situations.
And in spite of it all, I'm mostly back to giving people the benefit of the doubt. All be it, not dismissing any red flags. And at the same time not outright believing my red flags are "absolutely" legitimate. How much filter goes into my red flags? How do they weigh with the facts?
~*~
~*~
People act out for reasons. People make decisions for reasons. Reasons that probably go back generations both culturally and genetically. I think the majority, if not all, of those reasons are not to be minimized or dismissed. The only way to understand another's reasons (at least mostly) is to listen and to put ourselves in the other person's shoes as best we can.
"Reasons" do not excuse a person's accountability for their actions. But they help understand the "why" behind behavior.
After leaving The Way and my absolutist-thinking, I developed a motto: "There are no non-persons. There are no non-events." Meaning, that each individual is significant and each story worthwhile.
But then....John Knapp happened. I experienced something completely foreign to me. It shook my foundation probably more than even leaving a belief system after decades of being a true-believer. I had hired Knapp, a then-licensed mental health therapist specializing in spiritual abuse and cult recovery, to help me untangle the cult-anti-cult web in my head and heart. For the first year or so in, he did help. But then things slowly took a strange twist, landing in the bizarre. (After thought: Actually they were twisting all along. But I either didn't see the tangles, or rationalized them.)
Are there really no non-persons? Is my motto just another ideal that is a fantasy? How can a person intentionally lie over and over, in such a believable, convincing tone, seemingly without conscience? Can a person really have no conscience? If so, are they truly a "person?" How does my motto apply to the psychopath?
The Knapp experience was like an earthquake. My faith in humanity and those ideals which I wish existed but don't and probably never will (unless there really is a "new heaven and new earth" or some other life-form beyond death or this earthly plane) lay in rubble on the ground. Trust in my own intuitive sense, which I was in process of regaining after living doctrine-over-person for decades, was filled with smoke from the rubble. Who or what could I trust? How can even trust myself?
This reaction wasn't new to me. I had experienced similar when learning the truth about The Way and its leaders, about the lies and deceptions and using of people. But, in The Way, I hadn't experienced up-close-personal manipulative encounters with top leaders. I was more at a distance within the concentric layers of a cult. After Knapp, I better understood ex-Way (and any) person's responses to the up-close-personal psychopathic encounter.
As far as I know, The Way never lied about me. I was lied about at Greasespot Cafe, the ex-Way online forum. But only a few times, at least that I know about. There may have been more lies or rumors that never reached my eyes or ears. And I think the lies I know about were mistaken lies, for the most part, based in fear and projection, and perhaps in my responses to the circumstances in which I found myself. Circumstances that fell in my lap. But it was my decision to either discard what was in my lap, or weigh them and act. I chose the latter.
But Knapp. Knapp. He lied intentionally with a motive to destroy my reputation and to try to cover his own misdeeds, of which I later learned were multiple. After Knapp's initial gas-lighting and abuse, I learned that I was not the only person to have experienced Knapp's wrath and manipulations. But, at that time, I was the only client. (Sixteen months later, another client came forward privately.) And I was the only client whom Knapp tried to publicly smear after I blew a whistle and began coming forward with my story. He was partially successful. But not with those who know his pattern. (Note: Three years and four months after I filed a formal complaint, Knapp's professional Social Work license was revoked.)
Yet even with the evidence that others had similar Knapp encounters, it was hard to believe my bizarre Knapp scenario was real. I just couldn't wrap my head around the fact that Knapp could lie like he did. I still can't. I shake my head when I think about it, probably in an effort to shake it out of my head. I question if his whole life is an intentional lie, concerned only about himself but guised in a concern for others.
I've moved forward since Knapp's smear campaign in September, 2011. Yet it still lurks and can trigger some PTSD-type responses when I encounter certain situations.
And in spite of it all, I'm mostly back to giving people the benefit of the doubt. All be it, not dismissing any red flags. And at the same time not outright believing my red flags are "absolutely" legitimate. How much filter goes into my red flags? How do they weigh with the facts?
~*~
September 23, 2017
Left --> Center-left
9/17/17 journal entry thoughts expanded
Thinking about blogging. Thinking about vulnerability. I used to be more open than I am now. I'm not sure if I like being more closed. I feel I am less authentic when closed.
I do not like election years. I usually hate them. And the 2016 election year has continued. It may never stop.
I seldom use the the word "hate," but I may in this piece.
Emptying out all the rhetoric of pundit chatter in my brain, as best as I could, I've lately asked myself, How would you describe yourself politically?
Hmmm... I wish borders and money didn't exist. I wish guns didn't exit. That puts me left of center, that's for sure. I hate the war machine. I hate we have one-time-use plastics...
I wish greed didn't exist. It seems to all boil down to greed.
Even though I wish there were no borders, that does not mean I want a melding of cultures into a mono-culture, but rather coexisting cultures which makes me think of Star Trek. But even in Star Trek, there are wars.
To think that we humans "own" the land is such a strange concept to me. Yet, Hubby and I are land and property "owners." Tiny - a middle class home on 1-1/3 acres. But we don't really "own" it, even in the sense of property ownership; the mortgage company does.
Money. It's not so much money that I don't like as it is corporate capitalism. The rich get richer at the expense of those under them. It's wrong, wrong, wrong. I'd prefer no money and that humans work together for the good of the one and the many. Yet, I use money or some form of it almost every day.
Guns. I don't like them. Yet, we own one that we've never used except for some target practice decades ago. It's a .22-caliber pistol, a six-shooter, made by some German company. A .22-pistol could do damage, but it might be hard to kill a body unless the shooter knows anatomically where to penetrate and has a really good aim.
Greed. If we could eliminate greed, that would take care of so many problems. Isn't there some Bible verse, in Galatians maybe? Something about 'where there is love there is no need for law?' I might look that up later.
One-time-use plastics. Of the short wish-hate list above, that's the only one that maybe we can do something about. Maybe we can get it under some control and get some of it cleaned up. Yet, I use one-time-use plastics. I recycle all I can. But recycling isn't the answer. We really need a virus or bacteria that can eat plastic.
I understand that my short-list ideology can never exist (except maybe the reduction of those plastics). And it is a short list. There are other ideals I didn't list. I could write multiple essays (if they could even be called "essays") about my quasi-opinions on various issues.
"Opinions." Oh god - opinions can cause me stress. Probably one reason I hate election years. And my opinions are seldom "absolutes." They can be strong and weigh in the 95% percentile range. My strong or "absolute" opinions typically stem from my personal presence in a situation - a witness at the scene to what I saw, felt, heard in a given situation.
As I was thinking through my various opinions on issues and my "ideal wishes" regarding those issues, I think I'm pretty far left from an ideologically standpoint. But I know my ideals are not practical nor attainable. So, I move right - more to the center, politically. But still, I'm left of center.
Starting probably around 2007 I've taken various political tests to see where I land. I don't like most of the tests I've come across because their multiple choice answers are too black/white. But I found one test I like, and I've gone back to it time and again over the years. Each time I score the same - Libertarian Left, close to where the test places Ghandi. Wasn't he pretty far left? (I just took the test again today, 9/17/17. Same range.) "Libertarian left" sounds like an oxymoron, but I think I understand it. I don't feel like explaining it now. A reader can learn more at the website, Political Compass.
~*~
People act out for reasons. People make decisions for reasons. Reasons that probably go back generations both culturally and genetically. I think the majority, if not all, of those reasons are not to be minimized or dismissed. The only way to understand another's reasons (at least mostly) is to listen and to put ourselves in the other person's shoes as best we can.
"Reasons" do not excuse a person's accountability for their actions. But they help understand the "why" behind behavior.
After leaving The Way and my absolutist-thinking, I developed a motto: "There are no non-persons. There are no non-events." Meaning, that each individual is significant and each story worthwhile.
But then....John Knapp happened. I experienced something completely foreign to me. It shook my foundation probably more than even leaving a belief system after decades of being a true-believer. I had hired Knapp, a then-licensed mental health therapist specializing in spiritual abuse and cult recovery, to help me untangle the cult-anti-cult web in my head and heart. For the first year or so, he did help. But then things slowly took a strange twist, landing in the bizarre. (After thought: Actually they were twisting all along. But I either didn't see the tangles, or rationalized them.)
Are there really no non-persons? Is my motto just another ideal that is a fantasy? How can a person intentionally lie over and over, in such a believable, convincing tone, seemingly without conscience? Can a person really have no conscience? If so, are they truly a "person?" How does my motto apply to the psychopath?
The Knapp experience was like an earthquake. My faith in humanity and those ideals which I wish existed but don't and probably never will (unless there really is a "new heaven and new earth" or some other life-form beyond death or this earthly plane) lay in rubble on the ground. Trust in my own intuitive sense, which I was in process of regaining after living doctrine-over-person for decades, was filled with smoke from the rubble. Who or what could I trust? How can even trust myself?
This reaction wasn't new to me. I had experienced similar when learning the truth about The Way and its leaders, about the lies and deceptions and using of people. But, in The Way, I hadn't experienced up-close-personal manipulative encounters with top leaders. I was more at a distance within the concentric layers of a cult. After Knapp, I better understood ex-Way and any person's responses to the up-close-personal psychopathic encounter.
As far as I know, The Way never lied about me. I was lied about at Greasespot Cafe, the ex-Way online forum. But only a few times, at least that I know about. There may have been more lies or rumors that never reached my eyes or ears. And I think for the most part, the lies I know about were mistaken lies, based in fear and projection, and perhaps in my responses to the circumstances in which I found myself. Circumstances that fell in my lap. But it was my decision to either discard what was in my lap, or weigh them and act. I chose the latter.
But Knapp. Knapp. He lied intentionally with a motive to destroy my reputation and to try to cover his own misdeeds, of which I later learned were multiple. After Knapp's initial gas-lighting and abuse, I learned that I was not the only person to have experienced Knapp's wrath and manipulations. But, at that time, I was the only client. (Sixteen months later, another client came forth privately.) And I was the only client whom Knapp tried to publicly smear. He was partially successful. But not with those who know of his pattern.
Yet even with the evidence that others had similar Knapp encounters, it was hard to believe my bizarre Knapp-scenario was real. I just couldn't wrap my head around the fact that Knapp could lie like he did. I still can't. I shake my head when I think about it, probably in an effort to shake it out of my head. I question if his whole life is an intentional lie, concerned only about himself but guised in a concern for others.
I've moved forward since Knapp's smear campaign in September, 2011. Yet it still lurks and can trigger some PTSD-type responses when I encounter certain situations.
And in spite of it all, I'm mostly back to giving people the benefit of the doubt. All be it, not dismissing any red flags. And at the same time not outright believing my red flags are "absolutely" legitimate. How much filter goes into my red flags? How do they weigh with the facts?
~*~
If I blog these thoughts, will I feel unintelligent afterward, self-conscious, and concerned how others view me?
I've been reading more of The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. Interesting that according to many (most?) sociologists, one of the highest driving forces behind our decisions (if not the highest) is how we are perceived by others. People may find that offensive and say, "Not me." I felt a little of that. But I know all too well that I do care how I am perceived. Is it a driving force? Probably, but I may be too blind to see just how much of a force it is. There are multiple nuances behind and within the reasons we do what we do...
Thinking about blogging. Thinking about vulnerability. I used to be more open than I am now. I'm not sure if I like being more closed. I feel I am less authentic when closed.
I do not like election years. I usually hate them. And the 2016 election year has continued. It may never stop.
I seldom use the the word "hate," but I may in this piece.
Emptying out all the rhetoric of pundit chatter in my brain, as best as I could, I've lately asked myself, How would you describe yourself politically?
Hmmm... I wish borders and money didn't exist. I wish guns didn't exit. That puts me left of center, that's for sure. I hate the war machine. I hate we have one-time-use plastics...
I wish greed didn't exist. It seems to all boil down to greed.
Even though I wish there were no borders, that does not mean I want a melding of cultures into a mono-culture, but rather coexisting cultures which makes me think of Star Trek. But even in Star Trek, there are wars.
To think that we humans "own" the land is such a strange concept to me. Yet, Hubby and I are land and property "owners." Tiny - a middle class home on 1-1/3 acres. But we don't really "own" it, even in the sense of property ownership; the mortgage company does.
Money. It's not so much money that I don't like as it is corporate capitalism. The rich get richer at the expense of those under them. It's wrong, wrong, wrong. I'd prefer no money and that humans work together for the good of the one and the many. Yet, I use money or some form of it almost every day.
Guns. I don't like them. Yet, we own one that we've never used except for some target practice decades ago. It's a .22-caliber pistol, a six-shooter, made by some German company. A .22-pistol could do damage, but it might be hard to kill a body unless the shooter knows anatomically where to penetrate and has a really good aim.
Greed. If we could eliminate greed, that would take care of so many problems. Isn't there some Bible verse, in Galatians maybe? Something about 'where there is love there is no need for law?' I might look that up later.
One-time-use plastics. Of the short wish-hate list above, that's the only one that maybe we can do something about. Maybe we can get it under some control and get some of it cleaned up. Yet, I use one-time-use plastics. I recycle all I can. But recycling isn't the answer. We really need a virus or bacteria that can eat plastic.
I understand that my short-list ideology can never exist (except maybe the reduction of those plastics). And it is a short list. There are other ideals I didn't list. I could write multiple essays (if they could even be called "essays") about my quasi-opinions on various issues.
"Opinions." Oh god - opinions can cause me stress. Probably one reason I hate election years. And my opinions are seldom "absolutes." They can be strong and weigh in the 95% percentile range. My strong or "absolute" opinions typically stem from my personal presence in a situation - a witness at the scene to what I saw, felt, heard in a given situation.
As I was thinking through my various opinions on issues and my "ideal wishes" regarding those issues, I think I'm pretty far left from an ideologically standpoint. But I know my ideals are not practical nor attainable. So, I move right - more to the center, politically. But still, I'm left of center.
Starting probably around 2007 I've taken various political tests to see where I land. I don't like most of the tests I've come across because their multiple choice answers are too black/white. But I found one test I like, and I've gone back to it time and again over the years. Each time I score the same - Libertarian Left, close to where the test places Ghandi. Wasn't he pretty far left? (I just took the test again today, 9/17/17. Same range.) "Libertarian left" sounds like an oxymoron, but I think I understand it. I don't feel like explaining it now. A reader can learn more at the website, Political Compass.
~*~
People act out for reasons. People make decisions for reasons. Reasons that probably go back generations both culturally and genetically. I think the majority, if not all, of those reasons are not to be minimized or dismissed. The only way to understand another's reasons (at least mostly) is to listen and to put ourselves in the other person's shoes as best we can.
"Reasons" do not excuse a person's accountability for their actions. But they help understand the "why" behind behavior.
After leaving The Way and my absolutist-thinking, I developed a motto: "There are no non-persons. There are no non-events." Meaning, that each individual is significant and each story worthwhile.
But then....John Knapp happened. I experienced something completely foreign to me. It shook my foundation probably more than even leaving a belief system after decades of being a true-believer. I had hired Knapp, a then-licensed mental health therapist specializing in spiritual abuse and cult recovery, to help me untangle the cult-anti-cult web in my head and heart. For the first year or so, he did help. But then things slowly took a strange twist, landing in the bizarre. (After thought: Actually they were twisting all along. But I either didn't see the tangles, or rationalized them.)
Are there really no non-persons? Is my motto just another ideal that is a fantasy? How can a person intentionally lie over and over, in such a believable, convincing tone, seemingly without conscience? Can a person really have no conscience? If so, are they truly a "person?" How does my motto apply to the psychopath?
The Knapp experience was like an earthquake. My faith in humanity and those ideals which I wish existed but don't and probably never will (unless there really is a "new heaven and new earth" or some other life-form beyond death or this earthly plane) lay in rubble on the ground. Trust in my own intuitive sense, which I was in process of regaining after living doctrine-over-person for decades, was filled with smoke from the rubble. Who or what could I trust? How can even trust myself?
This reaction wasn't new to me. I had experienced similar when learning the truth about The Way and its leaders, about the lies and deceptions and using of people. But, in The Way, I hadn't experienced up-close-personal manipulative encounters with top leaders. I was more at a distance within the concentric layers of a cult. After Knapp, I better understood ex-Way and any person's responses to the up-close-personal psychopathic encounter.
As far as I know, The Way never lied about me. I was lied about at Greasespot Cafe, the ex-Way online forum. But only a few times, at least that I know about. There may have been more lies or rumors that never reached my eyes or ears. And I think for the most part, the lies I know about were mistaken lies, based in fear and projection, and perhaps in my responses to the circumstances in which I found myself. Circumstances that fell in my lap. But it was my decision to either discard what was in my lap, or weigh them and act. I chose the latter.
But Knapp. Knapp. He lied intentionally with a motive to destroy my reputation and to try to cover his own misdeeds, of which I later learned were multiple. After Knapp's initial gas-lighting and abuse, I learned that I was not the only person to have experienced Knapp's wrath and manipulations. But, at that time, I was the only client. (Sixteen months later, another client came forth privately.) And I was the only client whom Knapp tried to publicly smear. He was partially successful. But not with those who know of his pattern.
Yet even with the evidence that others had similar Knapp encounters, it was hard to believe my bizarre Knapp-scenario was real. I just couldn't wrap my head around the fact that Knapp could lie like he did. I still can't. I shake my head when I think about it, probably in an effort to shake it out of my head. I question if his whole life is an intentional lie, concerned only about himself but guised in a concern for others.
I've moved forward since Knapp's smear campaign in September, 2011. Yet it still lurks and can trigger some PTSD-type responses when I encounter certain situations.
And in spite of it all, I'm mostly back to giving people the benefit of the doubt. All be it, not dismissing any red flags. And at the same time not outright believing my red flags are "absolutely" legitimate. How much filter goes into my red flags? How do they weigh with the facts?
~*~
If I blog these thoughts, will I feel unintelligent afterward, self-conscious, and concerned how others view me?
I've been reading more of The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. Interesting that according to many (most?) sociologists, one of the highest driving forces behind our decisions (if not the highest) is how we are perceived by others. People may find that offensive and say, "Not me." I felt a little of that. But I know all too well that I do care how I am perceived. Is it a driving force? Probably, but I may be too blind to see just how much of a force it is. There are multiple nuances behind and within the reasons we do what we do...