Shared Experiences

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My little heart is going 10 to the dozen! I just realized that what is going on and what I am missing is that I have rarely shared an experience with another.
There are moments that I can truely say that I have though. One time was when I was camping in Queensland. My sister and brother in law had hiked ten km's to another camping ground for 3 days. I stayed back at the main camping ground and would go for daily hikes on my own. I had hiked up one afternoon to watch the platypus at dusk from a perfect spot I had found. I was disapointed when I saw a group of about 10 people headed toward me. My thoughts were that they would be too noisey and scare off the platypus. I was very wrong. Turned out they were all deaf. They were the quietest group of people I have ever been with. They sat and watched the platypus with me. This was a shared moment that I remember clearly even 14 years on.

Another is at a time when I was about 24. Two female friends that lived in the units decided I needed to get out more. I refused to go to a night club with them. I love a country pub. So they took me to this place where they could dance and I could sit at a table and do my own thing. Two deaf guys came and sat at the table with me. I don't know what it is about deaf people. I had the most fun I have had in a long time with these guys! We were communicating easily without speech. Every time the girls came over and tried to join in, they had no idea what was being 'said'. I am trying to recall how it was that we were comunicating. It was such a natural event though that I do not know. I spent most of the night with these guys and had a great time!

Most of my experiences with people tend to have a barrier that I spend more time working out how to break through, rather than being able to just 'be' with people. So these rare moments I want to remember for ever.

ElfMan

Ya know ElfMan, if you would like others to post comments on your topic, you may need to be a bit clearer about what it is you are saying. You could also try asking a couple of questions that are relevent to your topic.


Ok?

ElmFan

Hmm... unfortunate considering the subject.

Anyhow, I can see what you mean. I have rarely shared experiences with others. In fact, not for a number of years. When I'm with people, there's almost always that barrier, even with the few people who've been relatively "close". I can think of a few brief but pleasant exceptions, invariably with people a little different to the norm. Alas, now distant memories - opportunities missed or maybe rose-tinted spectacles.

Yep ascan...the distance thing is a weird factor. I have felt it for as long as I can remember. I used to wonder who those people were I was supposed to call mum and dad. Mum said as a baby I would push away from her when she held me. I'm not sure if that's in relation to the distance thing or the touch thing though.

Do you feel it with your family too? I still do as an adult, but now that I understand what it is, I accept it more.
I wish that I knew how to break though this barrier. Has anyone worked through this feeling with others? Any tips on how to overcome it?

ElfMan

Yes, I find that with my parents, too. I do visit them, and they visit me, but I feel uncomfortable after an hour or so; in a similar way to how I'd feel trying to communicate with strangers. That's not to say I don't enjoy visiting them, because I do get something out of actually having a conversation with someone, and my mother cooks well . I have a brother, too, and he has a daughter. But I feel no urge to see them, though my parents insist I should. They find this strange, the fact that I've never met my niece nor wish to do so. Ironically, my father comes from a very large family, but again, I've no wish to meet any of them, and haven't done for years.

This does, now, all make more sense, and in accepting the way I am I find that I'm descending further down the slippery slope to total isolation. A kind of self-imposed exile that is on one hand welcomed, but on the other a cause of regret in that it is an acceptance of failure to secure that which is most important for a person.

I don't know any way around this. Perhaps, it's best to just accept, and get as much out of the other areas of your life as you can. However, to lose hope of experiencing something that you've identified as being so important would be sad. It's a dilemma I wrestle with daily .

Ascan that is a well written post. Especially this bit

And when I am at my mum's for family gatherings...one my brother knows where to find me stashed away in the back of the garden...and two my mum always knows the right time to ask " Have you had enough Kym? I can take you home if you like". Even if it's just for dinner with mum, stepdad, brother and brothers girlfriend, I get overloaded. Our family does not force it on each other to socialize thank goodness.

Everything you mentioned, I can relate to.

ElfMan

I have felt a sort of barier between me and other people my whole life. It is as if I am living alone on an uninhabited island. Was I able to overcome it? Yes and no. The key is to become honest and vulnerable. You can't really share thoughts and feelings with someone if you don't drop your defenses (the "walls", as I call them). Of course this works only with a person who is interested, understanding and also honest and vulnerable to you. Such people are difficult to come by, especially that, obviously, one needs to open very cautiously to avoid getting hurt. As a result, with most people my walls are still in place.

(I am not sure if I am writing about the same barrier and sharing as you do, please forgive me if not.)

I remember being somewhat close with my family as a child. Not just my immediate, mom-dad-sister units but also my mother’s two sisters and grandparents. The distancing began when I entered adolescence. At around the age of twelve is when I truly understood something was different or even wrong about me. Communication with family members became difficult and uncomfortable. They indeed began to appear as strangers to me. My relationship with my father disintegrated as well, due to him being a workaholic who invested little time with the family. He became not only a stranger, but someone I actively disliked.

There were shared experiences I had with my aunts and grandparents that should mean something to me, but now mean absolutely nothing. Following the death of my grandparents the family squabbling began. My aunts disowned my mother, sister and myself. It has been over six years since I’ve had any contact with extended family and I hope I never see them again. Thankfully I am not related to them, me being adopted.

Shared experiences with friends used to mean something to me. However now, with everyone gone, moved away, or alienated, those experiences don’t mean much. It would have been nice, I suppose, to have life-long friends to reminisce the old days with. Alas, that is not to be. Occasionally I come across pictures of old friends and I feel a slight twinge of sadness over losing them, but that feeling is brief and over in moments.

The shared experiences that truly mean something to me still, are the times I spent with my last girlfriend and her son. That experience was the most meaningful and important time in my life. Those memories are at the same time the best thing I have and also the most damaging and painful.