The most difficult...

[GreeeeN GRassss]

I am of the belief that letting your emotions get the best of you is not always the best policy (for men). I mentioned in my story the women were caught up in emotion and grief, where I had to make sure we had a place to live and food to eat. We all cried and mourned together, but after that we had to live life Someone in the group has to stay strong no matter what.

yes but you just proved it, you can be emotional and still stay strong for the people around you.

mourning with your family and then been able to pick yourself up and look after others shows your inner strength.

people fighting in wars some what lose there humanity. i never have but i think to go and kill some one you kind of have to ?

 

[blastfrompast]

Most stressfull moment...

Not counting getting busted and making the papers...(nothing like your partner running to the media to get his name in the paper)...

I'm gonna say the birth of my child..

He had the cord wrapped around his neck, stopped getting the beeps on the monitor....Dr went in with the knife..(40 stitches in the end...and she had a natural birth :0 ) Then he literally reached in and pulled the little guy out....

They worked on him for about 45seconds till he started breathing on his own and finally crying..

Scariest moment of my life. He turned out fine..and so did my wife....but FUUUUCK.

Honestly if it wasn't for the Nurse screaming at the Dr to get the baby out I think we would have lost him. Talk about shit your pants moment.... We went from the birthing room to the OR in about 20 seconds.... Over a dozen people in the room assisting....

Interestingly enough..the nurse's name was ANGEL.. Super nice lady from Trinidad...but when she started yelling...holy crap that Dr. moved.

 

[Wayzer]

hey there huligun.

So of course the ability to DISPLAY and COPe with emotions is very different than to be OVERCOME or OVERTAKEN by emotions, and all people need to establish the proper balance based on your circumstances. And yes it seems that men have the abilty to control it perhaps a bit better than women, perhaps for that primitive reason u mentioned. perseverance through struggle requires u to keep ur emotions in check. but men prefer to shut them down completely, and women who work in predominantly mens fields tend to "have to" do the same. ive seen it happen.
it changes a person. not for the better.
Balance is always the key.

as for the war analogy, yes its rhetorical, but was meant as a point of conversation.
it could be argued that war is possibly rooted in this exact stigma that we speak of.
perhaps the first war ever was based on ego and the first man to shut down his emotions. his new belief system was spread through tainted logic and manipulated data to suit his point and managed to convince people that war was essential to survive.
perhaps this is a disease of the soul, to deny your emotions.

or maybe the first war happened magically like the appearence of humans.

but who really knows....

you know. ask yourself. we all have the answers to these basic principles of life stored in us

heres a calyx

I am of the belief that letting your emotions get the best of you is not always the best policy (for men). I mentioned in my story the women were caught up in emotion and grief, where I had to make sure we had a place to live and food to eat. We all cried and mourned together, but after that we had to live life Someone in the group has to stay strong no matter what.

You say that on the battlefield being tough emotionally is important, and I agree. The battlefield has and will always be there in some capacity and those in the most dangerous positions do not want to be there. It has always been that way, in every war. George Washington was an extremely rich American and he needed war to maintain his wealth. The soldiers fighting for him had nothing to lose. So asking why there is a battlefield is a rhetorical question and is offers no help in coping with grief.

Many circumstances in life can be compared to the battlefield, in that a man has to keep his cool to reduce harm or the potential for harm. If your friend is bleeding do you want to have an emotional break down or do you want to stop the bleeding. If money is a serious problem, keeping emotion in check will allow you to create a solution.

Allowing oneself to be overtaken with emotions is okay as long as it doesn't keep you from living your life or providing solutions for a crisis.

 

[Croptober]

For me its right now I couldn't find a job and have been looking for a couple months now finally I get a call for a nice job hours away from my family. Then last week my grandpa goes into the hospital and is having open heart surgery as I'm write this. I pray this is one more thing he makes it through as he's been through a lot. If not I cant leave my family when they will need me most especially my grandmother. At the end of the day when all said and done all you have is your family, cherish the time with your loved ones because the memories are the only things that last.

 

[huligun]

I see some articulate and well written post. It's nice that we can talk like this.

Wayser we probably agree in concept more than you think. Being overtaken by emotion and merely displaying it may a be fine line. Some people feel that expressing extreme grief is a release for them and it also offers respect for the deceased, for example. I have been personally accused of being heartless for not expressing grief and anguish with the loss of our father. I just didn't feel that showing my feelings would help. We have a person to bury and all kinds of financial and or legal issues. Mother and sisters were a wreck and someone had to step up and take care of business. I know. a trained artist that doesn't show emotion must be a bad one. I end up being a dealer and enjoy that as much as creating my own art.

Croptober you have to weigh all your circumstances. Perhaps if you showed up for work and told them what is happening they may cut you a break. I have employess and I would fully allow employees the time off. It is the law btw. But being new employee that has yet to report to work... they don't now have to honor family leave under these circumstances. You have been trying to find a job for a long time and you don't know when and if another offer is fore-coming.

 

[AAinAA]

I learned in college that there are various stages of mental trauma. People go through disbelief, extreme grief, anger followed by depression. I experienced all of that when my brothers were butchered by gangsters in Colombia. I have a mother and two sisters and at 23 I had to be their rock. Females display a lot of emotion and feel that a man will fix it and make it all go away. I had three women to take care of. Right after the murders we all left our home, a nice finca that has been in our family for three generations. We come to America and had to live in cheap motels and then government provided housing in the hood in Los Angelas. The trauma of all that loss was extreme. We got our finances sorted out after about 4 years, but for 4 years we had to deal with so much loss. I never thought of suicide, but murder crossed my mind. Even that is gone now and I am free to talk about it. Some people can't handle this much reality though.

Thank you for sharing your experience.

 

[AAinAA]

people fighting in wars some what lose there humanity. i never have but i think to go and kill some one you kind of have to ?

I know that the Zulu would hold "cleansing" ceremonies when their soldiers returned. It was believed that they needed help in order to reintegrate into normal social settings after having stressed themselves so much.

They dont do nearly enough for the USA soldiers that return.

 

[armedoldhippy]

They dont do nearly enough for the USA soldiers that return.

the truth right there! and they punish them if they try to help themselves in "unapproved" ways, even if it works...

 

[Midwest sticky]

the truth right there! and they punish them if they try to help themselves in "unapproved" ways, even if it works...

Yes, yes they do

 

[Weird]

I lived through years of suffering and have shared my stories here before.

I blocked out those memories for a long time, but at some point I had experienced so much trauma, I found myself blocking out everything, good and bad.

I then decided that this was not healthy and that I had to come to terms with what has happened in my life.

 

[Weird]

I posted this in another thread I think it belongs here as well, especially in consideration of the vets here

I am classified as "emotionally disturbed" due to life long mental illness (diagnosed pre teen). Some of it is of biological influence (bipolar adhd) and others are environmental (BPD, PTSD) above and beyond other nifty diagnosis.

The bottom line is, even after a year of institutionalization my prognosis was bleak, 6 months before suicide or permanent institutionalization)

This is a tip of the iceberg summary, but the bottom line is I am functional and mentally sound, not due to modern medicine but due to marijuana.

I have spent years in professional care and then years experimenting with alternative treatments and I can articulate the effects from a psychological view point.

Our minds are programmed by our experiences, our actual biology is effected by the input of our senses.

This programming can lead to very unproductive mindsets.

I believe we intuitively know this on a subliminal level but often don't have an understanding of the underlying causation to allow us to see it consciously.

Marijuana is a vehicle that allows us to escape this influence of experience, both biological and environmental (which still expresses biologically as well).

PTSD is an excellent example.

I would often have very traumatic memories triggered that would paralysis me or change my mood drastically, putting me in such bad places it would debilitate me.

Just leaving the house made this almost unavoidable.

If I smoked and got high enough, those memories didn't come when I experienced things, or at least the emotion that would be associated with them was not.

It gave me the capacity to create new pleasant memories around the same stimulus which then allowed my mind in the future to go to a different place when recalling memories triggered by the same stimulus.

It is proven marijuana creates new neuro pathways so there is even scientific basis for this observation as well as anecdotal evidence from others that suffer from PTSD.

Marijuana saved my life, quite literally. To me it is a civic duty to disobey immoral laws such as marijuana prohibition based on its medicinal effect on our species.

 

[Weird]

And a little something for the vets here

I think we all have parts of our lives, that if we knew what we were really getting into we would have made different decisions.

You can't change what has happened you can only change the here and now.

I am sure many of you have compartmentalized and put your focus right there, but at the same time for some it is a difficult if not an impossible task.

I think it is important for you to realized that your sacrifices saved some of us from having to live the same experience, and this is why I thank every vet for their service.

I have many vets in my family and I certainly registered as was my duty, but I was spared having to experience it (if I would have passed psych but they wanted me nuclear after I took the ASVAB sp*?)

Bottom line I would have the life I have, be able to push a peaceful hippy mantra in a world like this if I had been chosen so the direct results may not have been satisfactory but the universe doesn't let your sacrifice go unrewarded none the less. My insulation from that was at the expense of others and I recognize that. I am grateful for it.

I think on these grounds its OK to accept and let go of the past in a way that doesn't leave blank pages in those chapters of your lives.

Maybe it seems I am marginalizing the experience but I really bothers me how the US treats its soldiers esp after they are past usefulness and I think that it just illustrates that the US war machine is designed to take advantage of those with less resources through propaganda and empty promises.

I have also suffered from horrific PTSD through out my life and empathize greatly

 

[Midwest sticky]

^^ very well said.