For Halloween I was going to write a post about my hatred of zombies. This is what I wrote thus far:
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Why I Hate The Walking Dead (this was the draft’s title)
Hate is probably too strong a word to describe how I feel about a fictional TV series… however it describes the irrational reaction I have whenever I catch a glimpse of anything related to it.
It’s not you (speaking to the TV series), it’s me. You’re probably brilliant (still talking to the series) as so many fans claim that you are, I just can’t appreciate your brilliance because I am blinded by the fact (probably the wrong word too) that you remind me of…
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(Lori = my mother)
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…things of which I’d rather not be reminded. You trigger shit… which has yet to evolve into fertiliser for new growth.
If I were to analyse my irrational hatred for the show… but not too analytically otherwise I’d get lost in details… I’d say that it is the worldview which is presented which bothers me the most. It is too familiar, the type of familiar which chafes in a non-creative friction fiction manner, an irritation which is destructive in a non-fiction way.
I grew up in a family which viewed the world… the way the world is viewed in the show. Full of zombies and those who were not zombies were a death away from becoming one. The characters in the show are also too… familiar in a very uncomfortable manner. Too close for comfort. The non-zombies (as yet) were all busy stabbing each other in the back due to a skewed-by-desperation sense of self-preservation (and entitlement to survive over others) which might require stabbing those whose support might be useful in the back.
That is my experience of growing up in a world coloured by the lenses of a narcissist. Not one, but two… two who refused to work together and become one, but also refused to separate and become two.
And me in the middle of the two…
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At this point I decided to let go of the idea for the post, move on from it, but I couldn’t quite get over it… just as I can’t get over my intense and seemingly irrational hatred of zombies.
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I’m feeling very negative at the moment. I keep trying to ‘snap out of it’ but I can’t quite shake the feeling. It comes and goes, mostly it stays, hangs around like a bunch of ‘hoodies’ on a street corner. An undercurrent making all my attempts at positivity seem fake to me. I’m whistling a happy tune trying to pretend that those ‘hoodies’ don’t make me nervous at all. I’m trying to cross the street, get away from the shady side to the sunny side, but cars keep zipping past keeping me trapped on the wrong side of the tracks. Their drivers are in hurry to get where they are going and don’t have time to slow down, the traffic lights aren’t working and the zebra crossing is so faded that it is almost as though it isn’t there.
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In the past I would have spiraled into a bout of self-hatred for not being able to let go, move on and get over my negativity, because like so many people I have been taught to view such a state of mind as being bad, for me and for others, as though I was anti-life, toxic.
Over time I have come to appreciate the positive side of negativity, partly because it dawned on me that there is a negative side to positivity, especially extremist kind of positive thinking which wants to eradicate all negative thought – that positive attitude towards negativity seems more negative than positive to me.
And I’m not the only one who feels that way.
A few of you have mentioned how much you find the terms ‘Let go’, ‘Move on’ , ‘Get over it’, and similar platitudes rather annoying.
Are they annoying in and of themselves or is it the meaning attached to them which grates, the implication which they imply, the context of the text, they way in which they are said by the person saying them or the way they are heard by the person hearing them.
The meaning of something… usually has multiple meanings and definitions. Sometimes we agree on them and sometimes we don’t. It’s when we don’t that things get more complex than they already are.
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(what if it isn’t a waste of time…?)
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I quite like the terms ‘Let go’, ‘Move on’ , ‘Get over it’, and similar platitudes. They’re a simple and collective manner of expressing something more complicated and individual. However, there are also times when I don’t like them… particularly when someone (including myself) uses them to dismiss something which is not ready to be dismissed.
I can’t ‘let go’ of something (or someone) if it is not ready to let go of me. This situation has a message for me about myself, my life, and until I understand it…
I can’t ‘Move on’ from something (or someone) if it has not moved on from me. This situation needs a form of ‘closure’, and end of some sort, not necessarily a ‘last word’ or a resolution, but something which signals that a red light can finally turn green and let you go. Let you move on to… the next red light.
I can’t ‘Get over it’ until it gets over me… or gets something over to me… until I learn whatever it is that wants me to learn it. Sure, I can graduate and get my degree… but did I learn the subject or did I just learn how to pass a test to get a passing grade to graduate and get a degree.
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‘Let go’, ‘Move on’ , ‘Get over it’, and similar platitudes have helped me to ‘Shrug things off’ and take a ‘Chill pill’ especially when there was no other way of dealing with a chip on my shoulder because the chip had melded itself to the bone.
That chip is not a burden anymore in the way that it used to be, it doesn’t weigh me down like it used to do turning me into the Hunchback of Notre Dame… it’s still there, but there as a reminder of a lesson I am learning which sometimes requires a walk on the wild and dark side rather than for me to cross the road to avoid meeting it.
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I will probably always hate zombies… more so perhaps because I went through a phase where I was a zombie myself. That’s a hard pill to swallow, but medicine often is, especially when you need to be infected with a virus to teach your immune system to cope with it.
There have been times in my life when the idea of being a zombie seemed to be the thing to be. If you can’t beat them, join them… but joining them didn’t solve the problem. It did however offer a new perspective…
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Sometimes it is hard to break out of our shells, especially when we are not sure if it is worth the effort and pain… the unknown lies outside. Inside it is safe because it is known… or is it?
And breaking out of one shell… doesn’t mean we’re not still trapped inside a shell, we’re just not trapped in the one we’ve broken.
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Yesterday… Today… Tomorrow… each one is a shell of our past, present and future, the fragments of which we carry with us whichever way we go.
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Today, the day when the veil between worlds supposedly drops, thins out, allowing a passing from one place into another… I was presented with a trick or treat. It wasn’t a choice or even a question… it was more of a statement, a blending of two into one.
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An Upturned Soul 
This was a great posting. I love how you address the advice of “Let go” and “Move on”. It’s very helpful to think of such things in a new way.
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Thank you 🙂
There are so many perspectives and angles from which to view everything… and everyone. To more we can see the more we understand… maybe 😉
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Breaking out of our shells..that’s my main effort at the moment.it’s hard but it has its own magic indeed.I love your eggshell picture. xxx
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Thank you 🙂
It is hard to break out of our shells, because the shell is hard to break and it both protects and confines us. You are right, there is a magic to it… it’s up to us to understand the magic of it.
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This was a great post. Your perspective, as always, is fresh and enlightening. Learning to “take a chill pill” and be ok with NOT being able to solve an issue/let go/move on until the situation has finished with me or until the story has started to develop on its own is the most difficult thing I struggle with in my progress. Wanting to control the situation, resolve it – I’m starting to learn (still a work in progress, some days I’m more successful than others) that it just is not possible sometimes and I need to be ok with that. Thanks for your insight!
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Thank you 🙂
It’s difficult to come to terms with certain aspects of living and life, and being human, such as that we can’t have complete control over everything, especially ourselves… this is good for us, but doesn’t always feel that way to us. Spontaneity breathes a breath of fresh air into things… but sometimes it just feels like chaos making a mess of order which we’ve worked so hard to achieve.
I do a lot of struggling… and a lot of shrugging at my struggling. It all has a place and purpose, but it doesn’t always make any sense. Work in progress is definitely a good description of it! ❤
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Chock full ~~~ and oh soooo timely ❤ thanx 🙂 ..and o so needed this tonite 🙂
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Thank you… best wishes!
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The words in a meme to me say “Just pretend it never happened.” Something I’m no longer interested in doing.
Those terms “Let go”, etc…yeah that depends on the context for sure. But if we’re talking about some serious hurtful behavior, those words are usually said either by ‘well meaning’ folks who don’t know a think about recovery and probably have some denial issues of their own, or it’s said by the very people who have hurt you and are also in denial as to their own abuse toward you or others.
My family was/is good at that phrase. I finally realized that although it is difficult to hold on to this stuff and I DO need to work through it and eventually let it go, there is nothing wrong with wanting to resolve certain things from the past that have so intensely affected me. And that if they aren’t willing to work through it with me and not see me as the sole problem, and not that this toxicity is a family problem, then I will do it without them.
I was a zombie too. Still am in some ways I think. But thankfully more awake than once upon a time. I expect things will get more difficult as I have let go (there’s that phrase) of some very significant escape mechanisms because I want to face this crap once and for all.
I’ve never liked zombie movies either unless they were parodies of zombie movies. I think Sean of the Dead is my favorite up to this point. But who knows maybe I would get some insight from them if I watched them. I generally get bored of them though.
As for joining them. There is so much I can say there and a few different types of scenarios that come to mind. But yeah, that just creates more stress because hiding authenticity and realness is so energy sapping.
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I’ve watched a lot of zombie films in spite of my dislike of zombies (I think part of my dislike for zombies comes from watching too many zombie films), and every now and then I find myself really enjoying the genre. Sean of the Dead was very funny, and echoed much of what the cast did in the TV series Spaced which I loved. Probably the best zombie film I’ve seen lately is Warm Bodies (2013) because it did a very clever twist on the usual, the hero was a zombie and much of the film was from the zombie’s perspective.
I love the points which you’ve made, very insightful and shows a keen awareness of the variations which exist in interactions. Your words always reflect that, and always give me food for thought. You did a post the other day – http://safirefalcon.wordpress.com/2014/10/23/no-momentum/ – which I loved because it showed such deeply thoughtful self reflection connection to outward expression. Beautiful!
Whenever someone says something to me, especially when it is directed at me as an opinion (or judgment) on my life viewed from the other’s perspective, I endeavour to see what they are seeing, put myself in their place to understand what is motivating their words, how they are using them within the context of their life which influences their view. People tend to talk about themselves even when they think they’re discussing you, and the issues which draw their attention often have hit something within them. In some ways conversations are monologues which appear to be dialogues. So when someone says something like ‘Let it go’ or something along those lines, I take on board the possibility that I am harping on about something too much and may be stuck, but more often I look at it as them talking to me about something which is really about themselves – those who tend to tell you to ‘Let go’ tend to be hanging on to something unable to let it go and by saying ti to you they are saying it to themselves, hoping someone will listen.
Interactions are such multi-layered experiences.
Thank you 🙂
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Great thoughts here. I was told almost immediately after my sisters death and her narc husband ‘move on, accept what is, and my favorite – you are better than that. If you spend time thinking about him, he wins- put it behind you — as if you finish a life event and it doesn’t effect the fabric of your entire life. It’s ‘behind you’ as if it’s isolated and quarantined
All of those made feel worse, even defective in some way. And I did try to push myself past events- and guess what — it did not work.
I read a study that when I person who is sort of pessimistic forces themselves to be optimistic it actually makes them feel more stress rather than becoming a happy optimistic sort.
While this matter wasn’t a matter of choosing or finding the good — I find that no matter how hard I want to put an event behind me, It’s a process– no a decision. And suddenly one day, hopefully, it’s not behind me- it’s just not looking as largely on the forefront as it formerly was and I’m able to see other things too- thus providing perspective.
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Thank you 🙂
Ah , yes, the ultimate way to confuse – “you’re better than that” – which sets you up against yourself – is that self real or fictitious – and leaves you fighting with yourself while someone else, the person who set you up to fight with yourself, gets away.
I read a clever piece in Vanity Fair recently about ‘-shaming’ which commented upon the trend whereby someone uses ‘-shaming’ to shut you up and win a point in an argument without proving anything factually. There is nothing like ‘self-shaming’ to get someone to stop confronting you and get caught in a self-confrontation which distracts them from you and what you’ve done or are doing.
Whenever someone tries using ‘you’re better than that’ or ‘I thought you were better than that’ on me (which most people who know me don’t bother doing) I tend to flip it around on them – as in, oh dear, sorry you thought that as I am not better then anyone or anything – and continue with the point I was making or whatever I was saying or doing, because there are enough distractions without including that one. And frankly, what’s with this whole comparison thing anyway! If it is what it is, then it is what it is which includes being as is in the moment.
You have made some excellent points, ones which others often use to deny our points in favour of their own – such is human interaction, especially when a disagreement is met. And if that disagreement includes a narcissist… oy vey! Narcissists never let go of anything especially if it can be used against someone. They’re a dog with a bone and that bone is the only bone in the world. However they want others to do what they can’t do, so they can keep doing what they are doing without being confronted by the consequences of what they have done and are doing.
Some things do need to be let go… when we are ready to do so and not before that time. What we hang onto is often hanging onto to us because we need it even if we wish we didn’t – figuring out what it is… is a tough task, but worth doing as it allows us to eventually move on, let go, get over it… in our own individual way. Some things… that will never happen with those because maybe it’s not meant to be. And sometimes we just have to learn to accept that certain things are here to stay. But there are different ways to experience those things which are here to stay, and in that way we can shift in a moving on, letting go, kind of way.
Perspective is almost everything… understanding is also key to perspective. Understand yourself and that will help you to understand your perspective. You have that, which is a precious thing to have.
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I found the link to the study on how a forced positive spin can cause more negative emotions in some people. Please remove it if it’s inappropriate or not permitted.
http://psychcentral.com/news/2014/04/03/is-being-positive-hardwired/68017.html#.Uz-ATVn25Eg.facebook
You mention t.v. Right now I’m watching a reality show where two of the people in the show have been convicted and are going to jail on criminal charges for major financial fraud.
Every time I see the woman, she always says ‘ I don’t know why this is happening to me. I’m a good person. I try to think ‘positive’
And i always laugh. Sometimes I think ‘being positive’ is some form of denial or refusal to look at the entire picture — such as ‘if i just think of good out comes or don’t see the downside of the actual facts, then maybe I won’t have to experience them.
But then, on the other side is the old adage “never trouble trouble, until trouble troubles you’.
Of course, I’ve never been accused of that type of thinking. :-).
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Love the link, thank you for sharing it! 🙂
ps. I always welcome links. I also usually (although not always) say what you said when I add a link to a comment on someone else’s blog because you never know how the blogger may view it. Your consideration is much appreciated ❤
I'm going to add a link too, to an article (which is a bit… reflective of the attitude of the website on which it is on) of a review about a book by an author who decided to take the positive thinking thing on a test drive and analyse it from a devil's advocate viewpoint.
http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/05/positive-thinking-optimism-society-opinions-book-review-michael-fumento.html – the link takes you first to a page which requires another click to get to the article.
I like your TV reality show story because it encapsulates a common occurrence – one often found when dealing with narcissists. Most of the narcissists I know think they are the good one, the hero… and everyone else is the bad one, the villain, and they never know why they keep having to deal with the consequences that they are certain have nothing to do with their actions – but which we know have pretty much everything to do with them reaping what they're sowing – but they don't think they're sowing what we think they're sowing (like the woman on the show you watched)… and so nothing ever gets resolved because never the twain shall meet in the middle ground.
Great summation of a narcissist – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6xU_CPE310
Some of the greatest 'positive thinkers' are narcissists, because they keep thinking that by doing the same think over and over, the results will be different this time, and will be what they want them to be if they wish for it enough and force their positive thinking to create the reality they want (regardless of whether anyone else wants this type of reality).
I think a certain amount of optimism (and I tend to view optimism as being different from positive thinking, especially these days) is useful, but it needs to be balanced by a certain amount of pessimism (and I don't equate pessimism to negative thinking). Both have value, particularly when they work in unison giving a realistic and balanced view.
I like where you're going with this line of thinking.
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Brilliant! Shared with love on all my social media sites ❤
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Thank you very much 🙂
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and thank you for your wonderful writings, Ursula. You’re a legend in your own time ❤
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😉 TY.
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Rightly so, the platitudes of the undead are still not alive, it’s the sacrifice and what they have lost from their first life…so they remain spiteful…And I think we should all kill a television once and a while
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It’s intriguing to notice that the increased popularity of undead beings (zombies, vampires, etc) has coincided with an increased popular awareness of narcissism.
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