come out squirtle

years ago, when working at Borders, someone left a book on my desk. Come Out Squirtle.  The plot was essentially, Squirtle was afraid to come out of his shell and be alive.  All of Pokemon friends kept trying to coax him out. At last after six or seven pages, Squirtle emerges.. fully expressed and happy beneath a GIANT RAINBOW...  So for me the book was a coming out book.  I am starting this blog with that reference because its 12 years later. I am turning fifty this year, and I have taken massive steps in coming to life.   First, I am present to my shell. to how it got put together, to how I put it together.

My shell is made up of a viewpoint in which I hold myself a separate from others, in which i hold that others won't want me around. This belief of identity is pernicious in that even when others are saying directly, "we want you around"..... I can't/won't hear them.  It keeps me from being in the world.... and keeps me in control of the world I live in. I live and die by my own mistakes and choices and I don't have to fear other people.

The shell got put together by me,  to keep me safe. probably around age 6. When the world i was forced to go into: the one of school and adults and other people:  was occurring to me  as  a place that didn't want me.  And I developed a LAW for myself. that LAW was I DON"T FIT IN... and I started to look for evidence of the truth of that Law. And as I found more and more evidence, excluding evidence to the contrary, I became more and more comfortable inside the warmth and silence of my shell. Where I didn't have to deal with everything that was coming at me.   Really that just said it.... it really did. the world i was sent into each day... felt like it was coming at me... and each day brought something new that popped out at me. that scared me, threatened me, and they seemed to come at me fast and furiously....

What I did, i went inside. I watched TV. I became comfortable with adults. I imagined, I stopped feeling and became numb. For you see, in the "world" expressing emotions was punished, being myself was punished,  (now when I say punished I want to be responsible for that. I am speaking in the context of a 6 year old... I know now as an adult that this was just my child's view.. so for the sake of this Blog, I am communicating that child's view.) And so my private world became a place where I could be me.... and it became a reward to myself for having to DEAL with the people of the world.   It became the place where I wasn't confused.  and in it I was safe...