I must say that the reason why I like cats is that they don't blame every quarrel in our relationship on my #mentalillness or at least I don't spend time worrying that they do. When I deal with people -- especially those who know -- this fear...
...dominates my thoughts. I know many people think I am not very smart. My wife debates the truth of this, but I feel better if I assume that other people are smarter even if the evidence is that they are not. The cats don't care of rather I can't...
...see evidence that they do. People give themselves away all the time. You can see it in subtle twitches of their face. They aren't that good at hiding their feelings. I had to learn to read faces. I had to know how to distinguish the sociopath from the narcissist....
....It was survival. And it is still survival, like being able to see if a dog was of the vicious variety of not.
#photograph #photography #tabbycat #seniorcitizen #beard #CatsOfTwitter #CatsAndOwners #man
Joel Sax shared a #photo with you from the #Flickr app! Check it out:
flic.kr/p/2jrqzQA
Joel Sax shared a #photo with you from the #Flickr app! Check it out:
flic.kr/p/2jrqzQA
Last evening, someone asked me about the friends I met through Toastmasters. I admitted that I felt I didn't have any friends through Toastmasters. I blamed this on me -- on my lifelong suspicion of other people. The issue was safety...
-- what I didn't mention was that I didn't trust people. As mentioned before, this is a survival skill. I grew up in a family that couldn't be trusted. My brother once complained that I was stiff. He didn't fathom that there was a reason for that --
-- I always had to be on my guard around him. So I killed the lovely personality in me to protect myself from his abuse. If people attack me, I mostly stay silent. For a time I sought to be more assertive. This only angered people --
-- I don't handle being the subject of anger very well. Silence and withdrawal were the smarter tools. You don't get anywhere by yourself. You don't win any battles on your own. I have no reliable allies other than my wife. So...
...I have retreated like a cat into a box. This is my choice. The self help books don't advocate it, but many self help books advocate sociopathy. That is not my nature.
#photography #photograph #CatsOfTwitter #Hemingwaycat #calicocat #tunnel
Joel Sax shared a #photo with you from the #Flickr app! Check it out:
flic.kr/p/2jrnN5t
Joel Sax shared a #photo with you from the #Flickr app! Check it out:
flic.kr/p/2jrnN5t
I came out of adolescence hoping that I wouldn't have to be the person who was shaped by my family. Sadly, I have begun to discover that there is no escaping that personality. I do all the other personalities badly. Yet this is something I am also not good at.
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