I use music and many other things as a balm on my soul. I seem to be pained from deep down. It’s a pain which is semi-constant, varying in degrees. The pleasurable feelings I have been recalling from childhood must also be counterbalanced by painful ones. That would also support the maxim about not feeling one without the other. Of course as an adult, I have a third option of feeling nothing. Or rather, always self-medicating, applying the various balms available to me. They are distractions.
So, about the pain…

If I was happy and warm being in bed with my parents, I was unhappy when I had nightmares. I was unhappy when kids at school ridiculed and excluded me. To tell you the truth, I don’t really want to know what made me unhappy. I don’t want to remember in detail nasty feelings of pain and humiliation. Unfortunately the choice is that or running for the rest of my life.

I wrote a journal about what were the negative experiences in my life. Remember? Must I continue to rehash them?

originally published on 6/25/08