Self Abuse

Self abuse is one of the things that I have been an expert in my early years. I've come to understand that I was my own worst enemy most of that time. I was very good at setting myself up for an assortment of problems.

There are lots of ways to abuse oneself besides the obvious one of cutting. I don't know if my generation engaged in cutting but I know that my children's generation did and so have the preceding ones. My generation had lots of other ways to dish out the self punishment.

Rebelling against society, many of the baby boomers became flower children, did some really nasty drugs like LSD that fried their brains forever. They lived in communes where they were preyed on by any and all offenders. The very structure of the commune lifestyle, denying oneself, set women, children and the weak up to be victims. To protest any behavior was to "not be cool." and the unfortunate flower children were all about cool. It's no wonder that the likes of Charles Manson was able to manipulate some hippies to do his bidding. The lifestyle was anything but conducive to good mental health.

I was fortunate enough to not be drawn to the hippie lifestyle. My guess is with what I know about my programming now, that it was too far from my indoctrinated sense of "normal." Since I needed to be normal to survive and hippies were anything but normal, I stuck with the mainstream.

But there were lots of ways in mainstream America to abuse myself. I began smoking at the age of ten or eleven. I even wrote notes for all of the kids in the neighborhood to buy cigarettes. While I no longer smoke, my body has paid a price for the time that I did. If I could go back and do those days over, a cigarette would never have crossed my lips. The damage to my lungs interferes with my life even today.

Alcohol was another thing that I did pretty well. While I didn't indulge until I was out of high school, I pretty much drank like a fish. I could hold more liquor than any of my friends. Actually you could probably add up what they all drank together and be close to my consumption.

Under it's influence I had some really bad experiences with men, bad experiences as I was raped several times. In those days they didn't talk about date rape. It was pretty much taken for granted if you knew the person you had asked for it.

I bought that premise easily after all I had no respect for myself so why shouldn't I believe that I was a slut too even though sex was something I would just as soon stayed away from. It was pretty clear to me that it was just another way to be humiliated.
multiple personality disorder MPD dissociative Identity disorder
did self abuse