Who Let The Dog Out?
OK...WARNING...THIS ISN'T A COMIC POSTING...SO IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ SOMETHING HEAVY...SKIP THIS!
Early last week I received a constructive bit of criticism that can be taken a number of ways, and I've been thinking about it today. Part of the reason I've been thinking it is because Hot Toddy has been reflecting on what people think of him and his actions, part of it has to do with my own self reflections, but the part that hit home the hardest was reading about the boy in Brent's Blog.
In the email I received, it was pointed out to me (and I'm paraphrasing here) that I have anger and forgiveness issues. That I am like a cornered pit bull dog who once attacked or hurt, I will lash out and never let go of who or what hurt me. That I tend to be spiteful and revengeful. Is it true? Maybe…I don't know.
I never talk about my birth father, because he was probably the most sadistic man I have ever known. The scars he gave me (both physical and emotional) are something that I had buried for years and only in the last year reopened and not by choice. Brent writes about seeing the child with a split lip that his father gave him, and I remember being that boy. My dad used to put his cigar out on my thumbs as a punishment, and to this day, I still pick at the skin as if I was picking off scars.
In my life, I had to live in foster care 3 different times, because children's protective services found enough evidence of abuse. Being in foster care puts you in a new kind of hell, and you quickly learn when abused, you at least can be home if you bury the hurt and evidence. But now at the age of 34, the hurt has come back from where I buried it…with a vengeance.
My father has been dead for 15 years, and I still wake up at nights sometimes and can hear his voice. That never goes away. Thus I search for some type of closure…which really can't happen the way I would want it. It's ironic that the person I need to tell off most, isn't alive anymore for me to do it. And this whole "write a letter", or "visit his grave" (I don't even know where it is) crap just doesn't seem to do it for me.
Brent said in his post that he wasn't able to control his actions that day, and had the other officers not been there, he may have been guilty of brutality. I can understand that mentality, and if someone puts me or those I care for in that cornered situation, I can't guarantee that I wouldn't do the same.
Someone said to me that you learn the real lessons from being hurt, but I learned to avoid getting hurt at all costs, and the one time it happened since being on my own, well, it felt like I was a cornered animal. Maybe that does make me a bit of a pit bull, but I would prefer to be a pit bull instead of a push over.
