Heroes or villains ?

Heroes or villains ?
L

Lloydy

Registrant
How often are we guilty of trying to emulate our heroes, not the good guy heroes but the bad guy ones?

I'm thinking about the media and rock bad boys, Keith Richards, Hunter Thompson and the new favourite Ozzy Ozbourne. And if you're of a younger generation than me I guess you might have to think of your contemporary bad boys.
But you know the people I mean, they've done so much drink and drugs, revelled in the culture of living their life to the limit that they take on superhuman status. We marvel at their ability to survive such an onslaught of chemical abuse and fast living.
Sometimes we believe their excess' make them more creative, more interesting. Maybe that's the case sometimes, but I doubt even they believe it. Who knows what they could have done if they had lived clean lives ?

But are we as survivors guilty of playing the "bad boy card" sometimes, do we somehow believe our background gives us an excuse to indulge in "bad behaviour" because it makes us more like the media heroes ?
Being the bad guy has it's attractions, it always has. Didn't the tough guy with the motorbike always get the best looking girl ? There's something sexy about having a dangerous edge to your personality, we watch tough guy movies and wish it was us - don't we ?

Don't get me wrong here, I'm NOT trivialising sex abuse any more than I'm glorifying drink and drug abuse; they're all terrible problems for those of us that have gone through some or all of them.
What I'm wondering is do we cling on to some elements of our abused personalities because we have been condtioned by bad boy media heroes to accept that being the bad boy is good ?

Lloydy
 
Its the death drive man. The part of freud people dont want to talk about. Everybody has a will to live, AND a will to die. Nobody wants to live forever, they are just afraid of dying. Entropy has its place in the natural world, the old die and the new are born, sometimes things must be destroyed to make new. Some negative aspects of your personality are desirable, they help you survive and overcome adversity.

We admire people who cheat death and break the rules. Even if you dont agree with thier lifestyle, you might have a hard time saying that these people didnt live thier life to fullest, or at least try. Live fast, die young. I have to admit i would rather live someone like ozzies lifestyle than spend the rest of my life in a 9 to 5er. It is just not worth it, life is too short. Besides, hunter thompson and ozzy ozborn never killed anybody or raped them to my knowledge, what they did they mostly did to themselves.

In fact, i think if once we learn to set our guards down for a while, its quite healthy to cultivate an image of yourself as a badass. Hell, we survived things that would leave a lot of navy seals blubbering little husks. Why not use this pain to help ourselves and others? Why not use it to gain power and status? It is the least we can do for ourselves, and it gives us a chance to help others along the line. Uh oh, i'm feeling all inspired again. Dreams are really more a pain in the ass when your where i am, but they are persistant, ill give you that.
 
Wow Lloydy:

That is deep. I myself believe I have spent little time trying to be the bad boy type. It is a role I never felt safe in really. But, I have regularly fantasized of being a bad boy. And, I think part of that is due to glorified images of bad boys in the media. Like the lack of criticism for a married Mick Jagger impregnating a model young enough to be his daughter and possibly his granddaughter.

We all like to live vicariously through others and the media has learned it can sell this to us. What I recommed doing is turning oneself off to it, i.e. change the channel, change the station, turn the page, etc. This is a good starting point. Bye!

rafael :)
 
Yeah, the best button on the tv remote is "OFF", Since I have been dealing with my recovery my tolrance of the crap the media give us has dropped to zero !!

I think what I was trying to get at was my experience of living in my fantasy world for 30 + years, a world of acting out & sex and acting out & control. Many of my fantasies revolved around being the hard man, inflicting extreme violence to those that dared to overtake me on the road or whatever trivial thing it was that annoyed me. Sometimes, regretably, I let it spill out.

How much of that was my rightous anger as a SA victim, and how much was the influence of what I read and watched ?

I remember vividly thinking to myself when I was acting out, and way back as a kid when the abuse took place " I do things they don't, things they have fucking nightmares about" And that thought gave me strength at the time. I wanted the whole shooting match, the drink and drugs, violence and as much sex as I could take, I thought it was cool.

And that's a hell of a lot to give up, feeling cool.

Lloydy ( ice cold and loving it :D )
 
Lloydy:

Ya, I also have to deal with anger; sometimes pretty strong anger. It is a new experience for me. For my entire life I tried to be the good son one who never got angry and dared never show it.

Sometimes the anger that builds inside becomes very strong and I do my best to not lose control of it and hurt an innocent other or myself. Sadly, I have lost control of it and hurt others and for this I am sorry and I have apologized to those I have hurt. I have a hard time dealing with anger. How does one express anger in a healthy way? I am still figuring this one out.

"...righteous anger as an SA victim... you wrote." I believe I have the right to be angry. Certainly many of the things that were done to me as a child, as a victim of abuse were evil and completely wrong. I have a right to feel anger over what was done to me. I have a right to feel righteous anger-anger that is right. And, if another does not understand this then the problem is theirs not mine. As long as I express my anger in a non-abusive way. That's all for now.

rafael :)
 
Lloydy:

Ya, I also have to deal with anger; sometimes pretty strong anger. It is a new experience for me. For my entire life I tried to be the good son one who never got angry and dared never show it.

Sometimes the anger that builds inside becomes very strong and I do my best to not lose control of it and hurt an innocent other or myself. Sadly, I have lost control of it and hurt others and for this I am sorry and I have apologized to those I have hurt. I have a hard time dealing with anger. How does one express anger in a healthy way? I am still figuring this one out.

"...righteous anger as an SA victim... you wrote." I believe I have the right to be angry. Certainly many of the things that were done to me as a child, as a victim of abuse were evil and completely wrong. I have a right to feel anger over what was done to me. I have a right to feel righteous anger-anger that is right. And, if another does not understand this then the problem is theirs not mine. As long as I express my anger in a non-abusive way. That's all for now.

rafael :)
 
Hi Lloydy,

A very interesting topic. I hadn't really thought about it in the way you discuss.
 
Sometimes i wish there was a "fight club" for us. I never could comprehend the total pacifism of most therpist and the whole self help scene. Women have self defense groups for rape survivors. I mean, cmon, there ought to at least be a NOSMV boxing league. We certainly have the energy and anger for it. We would probably need a couple a guys on each side to keep us from going crazy sometimes though. :)

But honestly, is violence really wrong when it comes to self defense? I mean its bad, but thats the way nature works, tooth and claw. I dont think it is healthy to deny our darker natures, they are there for a reason.
 
Hell, that's a scary thought Broken.....
I get angry enough with VCR's I can't set the damn timer on !! :D
Lloydy
 
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