Loss.

[Sajainta]

I'd post this in the frustration thread, but it's more than a frustration.  I'd post it in the hate thread, but it's more than a hate.

I know I have lost a lot of my intellectual capabilities because of what happened.  They pumped me full of too many drugs (not by my choice) that messed with my brain, and I suffered too much head trauma.  Concussions are a bitch.

That is difficult enough, but it was the mind-games and dehumanization that almost drove me over the edge.  I don't know how many of you have been in situations where you are constantly being emotionally and intellectually manipulated and (for lack of a better word) completely mentally fucked with, but if you have been then I'm sure you can understand.  And then the mental abuse and dehumanization was mirrored by all the other kinds of abuse, and the physical dehumanization.

It is difficult to break the human spirit, but it is not impossible--and for an extremely intelligent, sadistic, sociopathic mind it is not only easy, but gratifying.  I truly believe that had it lasted longer, I would have been completely destroyed.  I was nothing more than an object to him, to them.  He did not even call me by my name--he called me "Object" and referred to me as "it" and "thing".  The constant degradation--both physical and mental--wore me down completely.  Believe me, in the beginning I resisted him.  In the beginning I spoke up against him, against his assertions that I was a whore, a toy, a thing.  Against him saying that I wanted it, that I was enjoying it, that I deserved it.  But the physical resistance only gave him pleasure, and the mental resistance only resulted in horrific physical punishment.

And how does a person fix that?  My body is forever altered because of what transpired, but he inflicted far more damage on my mind than he ever did on my body.

I have able to retain some of my sanity and some of my reason, but so much was lost.  I have been able to regain some of that sanity and some of that reason, but I know I will never regain all of it.  I know it is lost for good.  Both because of the serious injuries that were sustained and because of the mental torture.

It is infuriating and saddening and horrifyingly frustrating because I value intelligence so highly.  I am not the same person I was "before", by a long shot.  I've grown to accept it.  It's a bitter pill to swallow, but I've had to accept it.  That does not make it any less bitter and that does not make this any easier.

I lost many things, back then, back in Hell.  My daughter, my humanity, any sense of "ownership" over my own body, any faith or hope I had in the human race, and so much of myself.  And so much of my intellect.  It makes me want to cry forever, or scream "IT'S NOT FAIR." over and over and over again.  But the universe is objective; it owes me nothing, the man who did these things certainly does not care and even is happy and proud about what he did, and screaming won't change anything.

But it is not fair.

[KebreI]

My own thought speaking here. A soul, even of the purest white, never knowing a wrong or pain can't hold a candle to the beauty of one that has been weather and cracked by a hurricane and yet still towers on proud.

[FaustWolf]

Sometimes all you can do is let it out. You've been through things most of us here can't even begin to fathom; I just hope it's therapeutic for you to belong to a community like the Compendium.

That said, your accomplishments are impressive. A lot of people haven't succeeded in many of the ways you have since then -- people who have lived comparatively comfortable lives.

[ZeaLitY]

Yeah, life isn't fair, and the universe isn't objectively responsible to sentience.

But that's where humanity comes in. We're going to make this world fair. The concepts and creations of governments, justice systems...for better or worse, they're attempts by intellectuals and thinkers to make this world fair, just as scientists hope to defeat the frailties of the human condition and physical template.

Even though each of us knows that life isn't fair, we still expect it to be. We still demand fairness. As a famous intellectual said, "God was an idea of good government," and religion was created to explain phenomena and institute a fair rhyme and reason to a chaotic world. We demand fairness from this universe. And that's why we're going to make it fair, by continuously improving humanity and our environment, and learning.

One day, there won't be any more starvation, or unrest, or ignorance. Humanity will cure its ills and be free to explore the stars, find grand unified theory, and create the greatest works of art yet. There will be no more victims or people who have to suffer like Sajainta. That's humanism. It's humanity taking responsibility for itself and organizing self-directed evolution and justice. It's having conscience and curiosity in addition to consciousness. It's boldly going where none of us has gone before.

This it's why it's so urgent for us to educate ourselves and help somehow. Right now, there's someone like Sajainta still being used for sex slavery. There's someone dying every minute from a failed government or business policy. There's millions of people living under oppression, whether sexist, racial, or religious. And I've only described the United States! Yes, sex slavery happens in America!

This state of affairs is intolerable. As a sentient species, we shouldn't be satisfied with anything less than a fair universe, and a just civilization. So fight the power; do the impossible, see the invisible, fight the power. Learn, learn, learn, and apply. Leave the world better than you found it. Steer the species and world on to its illumination; to the day the problems are cured and knowledge reigns. We're going to improve humanity; we're going to touch the stars.



Let's see what's out there. Let's leave all this behind and evolve to something better.

[Temporal Knight]

*sobs without a sound*

Such beauty. A poetic storm on the most valiant of airy nights. A tornado of passion, for what the soul and the spirit stand for. A statue, never pushed nor held down by the mere thought or threat of an approaching typhoon. A mighty beast of a poetic storm.

It stands alone, things like these, that show us that we need to alter ourselves and our mindsets. Make ourselves better for others, and hope to inspire those others to stand with us and so on, so forth. Let us change what is wrongful, as much as we are capable of, and perhaps restore the world to a higher standard for all things, living and non-living. Burning evidently in the passion and fury that is bestowed upon us by the natural order, and by the sheer willpower of a people who can survive. A people who can thrive. A people who can become more than people, but art.

Let us be that poetic storm. Let us learn. Let us teach. Let us hope.

Let us live for a better future.

Stratosphere, a wonderful tune for the mindset of hope and renewal.

[Thought]

Ah, the frustration of the internet: the only proper response is in action, and yet the only response we can express is in words.

You have friends here, and though I doubt any of us can approach an understanding of what you went through and what you lost, we mourn with you. If we could be there to cry with you, to rage against the past and the injustice with you, we would.

[Lord J Esq]

I'm raging right now! I'm like Gau.
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
You're probably right: You may never regain the sense of wholeness which you took for granted as a little kid. That will make yours a much harder life than it would otherwise be. Maybe someday you will be able to work it all out and find peace with yourself. That's a journey you'll have to make alone.

But, in all other affairs, Thought is right: You have friends here, and elsewhere. We are here when you need us! 

[ONSLAUGHT]

I believe I've actually had something of a sort(I believe, chances are even if it's similar it's not the EXACT same thing)happen to me before.

Best advice I can give is don't let him know how pained you are. I haven't let my harm bringer know for years. And it took quite a long time, I mean real long, longer than anyone could want, but eventually they started to crack. Last I saw them they were shaking me demanding why I wasn't bothered, their faces extremely confused. Twisted as it may have been, I laughed.

Wish you the best of luck however you handle your situation.

[Uboa]

After Lewis Pugh swam 1 kilometer in the sub-freezing waters at 90ºN, it took him four months to regain any capacity for sensation in his hands.  I don't know about anybody else here, but after two months of numb hands I would be thinking that hoping to regain any sensation would be a lost cause.  Yet, after only two more months his hands returned to normal, an indication of the miraculous tenacity of the human body.

As you know, I've done things to myself that I doubted I would survive.  And, yet, finally I can say that I've recuperated physically and mentally from them.  It took me nearly seven years, after almost starving myself to death, to rid myself of the troubling mindset which plagued me and the physical maladies which followed.  I never thought that I'd be able to think normally about food (although some may argue that I still do not, given how much I obsess over trying to eat for alertness as well as avoiding carcinogens), and I never thought that I'd be able to almost fully rebuild my body after that, and yet now I can say that I've essentially done both of those things.  They just took a very, very long time.

I cannot pretend to know the view of the road ahead from where you stand.  I cannot to truly understand it, but I hope that I can, maybe, offer some assurance that there is really a light out there, and that there really is something better in the distance.  Perhaps "True Freedom".  Sometimes we write off things we've lost as impossible to regain, but it is not truly the case.  There is always a chance that we will recover, that we will become something we once thought or still think impossible, tenacious as we are.

I know that the immediate future looks tumultuous.  I think about your situation often, often wondering if there is anything else I can do.  I know others here probably do the same.  I'm glad you've found this place.  

(Also, in the next few days expect something neat to appear in the art threads.  I was going to try to rush through and get it done tonight so I could post it here, but looks like it will have to wait for now.)

Edit:  HAH.  Well, this should be good for a laugh.  Edited because the North Pole is actually at 90ºN, rather than 0ºN which I wrote the first time.  If the equator becomes home to sub-freezing waters, well, I don't know.  Maybe Al Gore will have seen it coming...