Homicide, Suicide and Pesticide

Who hasn’t had dark thoughts about wishing that all the people and things in our lives that give us the shits would go away forever?

That was a big part of the attraction for me in “getting blind” or “getting out of it”. Booze, pills and drugs, seemed to be a very effective solution for me (prior to my recovery that commenced in 1995) in making all the difficult stuff in life go away … for a little while anyway.

Emotional Homicide is a topic rarely spoken about and is seemingly invisible to the human eye, but can be fatal to the human heart. For troubled teens I work with it seems being embarrassed by their peers publicly equates to emotional homicide. Other words for it are character assassination, malicious gossiping and bullying. Deliberate and intentional blows to the human heart cause emotional trauma. Like physical trauma it needs to be tended to so it can heal.  I believe,  we all need to be as gentle as possible with each other, as we are fraglie people on a tough day.

When we have taken a hit to the heart, plastering ourselves with booze, numbing the pain with pills and drugs, or disconnecting from our heart only makes the emotional fallout worse with time. When we suppress our natural wiring that enables us to feel pain, we also suppress our capacity to feel joy and a vast array of other feelings. This often results in depression for a life lived without heart, is a sad one indeed.

Emotional Suicide I have also studied for years at the University of Life and have graduated personally with a master’s degree. Also affectionately known as self sabotage the art of emotional suicide for some becomes a life style. Looking for love, support and loyalty from emotionally unavailable people sets us up for a life of unhappiness, rejection and dissatisfaction. However I personally found that for the first three decades of my life I was far happier being unhappy, and most comfortable in a state of emotional numbness and disconnection. I was an emotionally unfit, lazy and irresponsible victim.

I wrote in a previous blog “When relaxing is stressful” how letting my guard down and surrendering totally to just being, rather than doing, can still be a challenge for me in recovery. For being emotionally, physically and sexually safe was not an available option in my formative years. Changing that emotional program that ran for the first 33 years of my life still takes deliberate attention.

Emotional Pesticide, well that is just a fun term for the arguments many of us have with pesky flies, mosquitoes and other insects and objects.  Things that actually don’t have a personal issue with us, but we take their existence very personally when we are emotionally out of balance and without humour. Inanimate objects like seatbelts, computers, mobile phones, television remote controls are without a doubt major pests, at times, in life. I hear myself and others often cursing and conversing with these “things” as if they are listening and if yelled at loudly enough will stop their nonsense and do as they are told.

So it can be helpful to remember the Homicide, Suicide and Pesticide trio as a quick emotional spot check from time to time.

Check point one. When speaking about others to others, it helps me if I check my motive before doing so. Am I aiming to be constructive or destructive? Is it my intention to commit Emotional Homicide and try to assassinate the absent person’s character? This person may have crossed a personal boundary of mine or disrespected me in some way. If this is the case, I often need to ask myself “Do I want to become the very thing I am accusing them of”. Or “Do I want to rise above this and act with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child? If the issue is challenging and complex I will take it to my heart mother Beautiful Barb and sometimes also my male therapist to get both male and female perspectives before I decide on a course of action.

I find if I can remain balanced and disagree without becoming disagreeable no matter what the issue this is most effective. Also if I actually take the issue to the person at hand, not whinge and gossip about them behind their back, I don’t compromise my self respect, and the outcome is far better for all concerned.

Check point two. When looking for love I ensure I don’t look in all the wrong places these days. A lifestyle of Emotional Suicide kills off hope and heartfelt intimacy. When I don’t check in with my own heart, it becomes difficult to find a match with another. Knowing who I am and what I will and won’t stand for has helped me be more discerning with intimate relationships. I was an emotionally unavailable girl looking for love from emotionally unavailable people. Nowadays, I am an emotionally available woman who simply chooses not to invest my time intimately with emotionally unavailable people. And the result is peace and beautiful, honouring relationships. Welcome food for this once hungry heart.

Last but not least.

Check point three. Anytime I find myself yelling at the possums that come into my laundry and frighten the crap out of me when I pull out my laundry basket or at the dishwasher, shopping trolley or my IPOD I remember that this is technically an act of Emotional Pesticide. Quite frankly it helps if I remember that I am talking to something that really doesn’t give a shit how sternly I yell at it. It is emotionally unavailable, so I best just leave it in peace.

Thanks for taking the time to meet me here today. I won’t be blogging tomorrow as I am excited to report I am working on an amazing project with an amazing Indigenous Queen Elder and it will take most of my working day. So I hope to connect with you again Thursday.

Some Word Vitamins I will be taking today and would like to share with you are from an unknown author so whoever you are, thank you.

“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny”.