How locked into your routine are you?

[JarlWolf]

I consider damage to be a sickness that may develop from an event. Yours is just a perspective Rusty, it doesn't inhibit you really to the extent it makes you unstable, just a little more cautious. And I know the same perspective as even when I was a young child, the concept of mortality and losing people was not unfamiliar. I grew up in what is now known as Volgograd as a very young child during the Patriotic war. And needless to say that was an ugly place to be for anyone, let alone a civilian child.

[Rusty Edge]

Well, I'm not normal.   But I may be the better for it, at least in terms of survival, planning  and coping skills. I imagine there were a lot more people like me in earlier times, even Victorian England.  It's a shadow over my hopes , dreams, and expectations. JarlWolf is exactly right, it does not inhibit me to the point of being unstable.

I never met anyone from that pivotal historical point before, JarlWolf, although the documentaries of it are some of the most haunting things I've ever seen. I guess I supposed that the majority of the children went far east on the trains along with the steel mills, in the way that London children went north to rural areas. Would you like to talk about it now, or drop the subject?

[Buster's Uncle]

My dad was a medic in Korea.  On the rare occasions he would talk about the war, as soon as he got to dead bodies he'd say "I don't want to talk about this any more".

[Valka]

I consider damage to be a sickness that may develop from an event. Yours is just a perspective Rusty, it doesn't inhibit you really to the extent it makes you unstable, just a little more cautious. And I know the same perspective as even when I was a young child, the concept of mortality and losing people was not unfamiliar. I grew up in what is now known as Volgograd as a very young child during the Patriotic war. And needless to say that was an ugly place to be for anyone, let alone a civilian child.

I prefer not to think of people who have gone through horrifying and traumatic events as "damaged." Damage is something you fix (or give up on), not something you help. There's a difference.

Some years back, I helped run a Dune forum. One of the members, a young woman, was constantly getting into trouble for ignoring forum rules, and some people were offended at the blunt way she expressed herself. I was on staff there at the time, and decided to reach out to her privately, to see if there was a reason besides an anti-social attitude behind the behavior and if there was any way to help her. She ended up telling me about seeing several members of her family killed in the Balkan war. She was just a little kid, and grew up with a lot of hate and anger and sadness and it's affected how she deals with people. Most never had the patience to try to see her for herself. She's a smart person, was in university at the time we last emailed, and I truly hope she has found a way to a peaceful and productive life.

[Buster's Uncle]

I don't choose to give the label any power; I have issues is all.

[JarlWolf]

Valka, please mind I do not connote that damage is a completely negative, terminal expression. Its not. Sickness, trauma can be overcome or at least adapted to over time. I merely meant that sickness MAY develop from a traumatic event if left unchecked, if not properly dealt with. That's why people who do have traumatic lives and do not have the proper therapy, support or other means to cope have problems that have higher chance of developing.


As for my experiences Rusty, my biological father was not alive/not around, my mother died giving birth to me and my mother's husband hated me. And my caretakers were part of the defence of the city. Without saying me and those who took care of me tried their best to shield me and keep me away from the worst of it, but I had nowhere to go or turn to for the most part in terms of leaving, those who cared for me were attached there. It is why I eventually did go into the military because its what I grew up in, my parental figures and those who did love and care for me, nurture me were involved with it. There is other reasoning as well, and that subject is a lot more personal and is not something im comfortable to speak about.
And as for the subject itself... I probably would discontinue it just to be safe. I don't mind talking about portions of my past but some things are better left in the dark.

As for you "not being normal," normal is an irrelevant abstract. Normal is just defined as what is familiar, and most people in their lives encounter some form of trauma or death at some point. No one escapes it and never, realistically will. It's just you experienced at a point in time where the trauma had more effect on your psyche as you were developing.