Hanako's Broken Heart Club

[Helbereth]

Your heart will change only if you want it to. If its set on something your mind knows you can't have, it's really up to you to divert its attention elsewhere. How to do that, exactly, depends on the situation. You can't reason with it, though. The decision has to be as emotional as it is logical - which is probably why it's so much more difficult to change your heart than it is your mind.

Basically, if you feel so much about one thing, but know you can't have it, you need to find something else that you feel just as strongly about but could still have.

It's not easy.

[Kouryuu]

Your heart will change only if you want it to. If its set on something your mind knows you can't have, it's really up to you to divert its attention elsewhere. How to do that, exactly, depends on the situation. You can't reason with it, though. The decision has to be as emotional as it is logical - which is probably why it's so much more difficult to change your heart than it is your mind.

Basically, if you feel so much about one thing, but know you can't have it, you need to find something else that you feel just as strongly about but could still have.

It's not easy.

Very good point and fortunately for me, going by this, it will be easy for me. I already have something I can focus on.

Yeah you guys really cleared this up for me, I know exactly what I am going to do now <3.

[Walrusfella]

Xiious, good on you. It sounds like you're taking care of buisness. You don't fold up when things get rough.

Kouryuu, it seems like your heart is trying to mess with you in the vacuum of information about this person and what she thinks. Like the others said, I wouldn't go with your heart's counsel on this. It's cold comfort, but it may be best to try to ignore it for the moment and stay the course. She'll get back to you in her own time, or she won't, and you can deal with either.

Small update on my own situation: I'm back to serious job hunting (my job being the source of most of my present problems). Applied to a few promising ones - no bites yet, but I remain hopeful. For the first time in a long while I feel like I can change my condition.

Edit:

Yeah you guys really cleared this up for me, I know exactly what I am going to do now <3.

Nevermind! Good luck.

[Erenussocrates]

@Kouryuu, what about your decision about therapist? Have you considered it throughoutly?

[Kouryuu]

@Walrusfella - dont mind me, I just fist pumped when I read your last paragraph ^^, well before the edit that I just saw now

@Erenussocrates - I decided not to. I just had a short freak out that is all sorted now, mostly thanks to you guys .

[Beoran]

Kouryuu,

Rational thought and emotions work in a different way and even physically take place in different parts of the brain. Those parts don' t always agree and that's why we feel inner conflicts at times. However, both emotion or intuition, and rational thought are valuable. Rational thought works well if you have enough input data to consider and investigate the facts. Emotion and intuition works best when such information is lacking. However both parts of the brain can and should be trained to work better. Training your rational thoughts is learning and studying. Training your intuition and emotions is gaining wisdom.

The latter can happen through emotional experiences, such as playing KS or traveling or meeting new people, meditation, and other ways I ams still trying to discover. It is harder to gain wisdom than it is to gain knowledge though, since intuition and emotion are more primitive and more "set" in their ways.

So all in all, "follow your heart" is not a good advice, however, "follow your head" is also not so good. I would say, "gain knowledge and wisdom, and try to balance what rational thought and emotions tell you."

As for contacting that girl, I still think it was the right thing to do. It's good to check up on old friends. You had no way of knowing that she was in a bad situation. Now, to put it bluntly, if you really wanted it, you could take advantage of the situation and take advantage of her. But that would clearly be the wrong thing to do and cause her and you even more suffering in the end. So, the question is then, what's the right thing to do now?

I think ethic, and good and bad exist absolutely, but not for any religious or supernatural reason. I think it's very simple: everyone know is what is right or wrong, good or bad when it comes to themselves, and when it comes to how we want other people to treat us. But when it comes to dealing with others, almost everyone, myself included applies a different standard. That double standard we all use is the cause of all problems we make for others, and also, returns problems to ourselves in the end.

Walrusfella, keep at it, and so will I. I sent my resumé to over twohunderd e-mail addresses and I got just about four job interviews to show for it and none seemed really promising. We'll probably both have to keep on looking for a while linger before we find a job.

[Kouryuu]

Thanks for your input Beoran, your very right too.

I think what you said about contacting the girl was aimed at introfate? I havent had a response yet, I was just freaking out for no reason ^^.

[introfate]

As for contacting that girl, I still think it was the right thing to do. It's good to check up on old friends. You had no way of knowing that she was in a bad situation. Now, to put it bluntly, if you really wanted it, you could take advantage of the situation and take advantage of her. But that would clearly be the wrong thing to do and cause her and you even more suffering in the end. So, the question is then, what's the right thing to do now?

If that was directed to me, manipulation has always lingered in my mind because it's happened to me. I dare not traverse that path, because I've experienced the low that entails. Realistically? I've had plenty of opportunities to do it, have I thought back and imagined what would have happened if I did? I have, but that wouldn't make me better than any of those others who have done so in the past.

As for her case, I told her I wasn't willing to push our friendship any closer than it is already. She chose not to listen though, as if what I was saying was being censored. I made contact with another internet friend we shared, that was a bad choice because the guy secretly had feelings for her and he said I "ruined" her. Said he's been trying to get me off of her mind since I severed contact. All I could do was apologize, he declined it though. Blocked me and all. In my view it's one less griever.

Ehh, I've kept myself occupied with my business for the most part aside from that so it's been forcing me not to feel down.

Ehh, and I'm sorry I've made the recent posts of mine so selfish. I'll come back with answers soon enough.

[Helbereth]

I've been mulling this over, and I've decided to just be out with it. I've been posting in this thread under a pseudonym - another moniker I use on the internet with much less frequency - Voxile. I'm saying that because I wanted to own up to the story I've been relaying. It's all true, mind you, though my memory is somewhat subverted since many of the events took place as much as 25 years ago. Some of the sequence is probably off, and the explanation of that should be obvious - I've forgotten.

I graduated High School in 1998, 3 months prior to my 18th birthday. That was nearly 14 years ago. In fact, I think my graduation ceremony was on July 6th which is only 10 days away. It might have been June 6th... I'd have to fish out my yearbook.

Near the end, my memory gets more hazy and there's a lot of good memories I don't like to admit to - it feels like they cheapen the tale. I remember not completely hating our class trip to Disney Land (or World, whichever one is in Florida), and I had gotten used to being called 'Teebs' by the end - enough that I wouldn't be bothered by it if someone called me that again. Still, I haven't stayed in contact with anyone from my graduating class - or anyone from the school - in the 14 years since. I'm Facebook friends with a short list of them, but the remainder might as well be dead to me. That's a careless thought, I know. It's the one I had while writing this, though. It also has the benefit of being mostly true.

I mentioned my two brothers because I realized they had a lot to do with my problems in school - indirectly, at least. All three of us were facing the same situation, and we all knew what the others were going through. I often felt as bad about hearing what my brothers went through as I did about my own problems. I'm still empathic in that sense - I can read a bad mood or a good mood on someone without many cues. In any case, I felt what my brothers - especially the younger one - were going through almost as much as they did. I never got the chance to track down Christopher's tormentors to beat them lifeless, but I still think about it even now. Where Mark is concerned, my hatred is mostly directed at a particular teacher - yeah, he had one of those - whom deserves to be punched in the mouth, hard as possible, by a 7-foot-tall sumo wrestler as a wake-up call every morning for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, I think he died a few years ago, so that punishment would have to be converted to the ring of Hell where he found himself wallowing.

Near the end I started talking about how the experience changed me. I had started out as a curious, inquisitive, sensitive kid, and I ended my time in High School as somewhat of a jerk. Luckily, I don't think that stuck. Once I was able to divorce myself from the constant emotional battering - or even the imagined emotional battering - of School, I started to revert to that curious, inquisitive, sensitive self that had apparently never left.

I still have trust problems, though.

Having your trust betrayed by almost every possible source isn't going to happen without leaving some insecurities, and I know I still have them. I still react to first meetings like a caged animal at times - especially in a crowd of people. I'm exhausted when I get home after a day spent out in public because I'm so self-conscious. I tense up easily, think people are looking at me, and sometimes wonder if I should have stayed home. I deal with it, though. One has to.

I'm still effectively a shut-in, though. I really didn't get the best social preparation in School and it has made my dealings with real people somewhat strained. I tend to lack tact, and ask questions that raise eyebrows. I put my foot in my mouth a lot, but I'm able to laugh about it as long as they don't take it too seriously. I don't deal terribly well with irate conflict; often going mute and shrugging apologies if I find myself being berated, which is something I used to do to push back my instinct to lash out when being teased.

I still lack friends. It's something of a sore note. You can probably imagine that, though.

Not that I haven't tried. I've been able to make several friends since leaving School, but I have never been able to keep them. I end up changing jobs or they move away, or something like that - life happens. I push them away, perhaps. And then I'm alone again. I feel misunderstood, taken advantage of, or simply abandoned by most everyone I've ever met - except my family. I know it sounds silly, but it also might be true. That part scares me. I sometimes feel like screaming about it, but I know that wouldn't do any good.

Instead, all I can really do is keep a smile - drooping as it might be - on my face, and look ahead to the possibilities. I've almost gotten used to my lonely existence, so maybe I'll begin to feel better about it eventually. Maybe. Probably not. I hope not.

Anyway, I hate to end the tale on a downer, but maybe it's not over yet. I feel better for having written this all down, certainly. It's helped me put some of it into perspective and realize some of the reasons why I am the way I am. Maybe that's what I needed to really start looking forward instead of keeping my gaze back over my shoulder. Maybe I'll be able to approach people with a measured amount of trust. Maybe. My life is still a work in progress.

[Surreal-mind]

I have been reading all the posts in this topic, but I haven't commented on anything in a while because I have a gazzillion problems right now. I'll start writing again once/if things settle down...

All I can do right now is wish you all guys luck !

Don't give up !

You are all pretty awesome!

[Beoran]

I think what you said about contacting the girl was aimed at introfate? I haven't had a response yet, I was just freaking out for no reason ^^.

Whoops, yes, that's right, I got you guys mixed up a bit, sorry for that. But in your case it's also fine you contacted her of course. I hope it'll turn out better for you and her than the way it turned out for introfate and the girl he contacted.

[Total Destruction]

@Xiious: Handle biz. Be good.

@Helbereth/Voxile/????: Aw, man. What gives? No need to be anon behind anon. That kinda redundancy confuses me, lawl. Regardless, dude, take it easy.

@Kouryuu (that name is very hard to read/write with dyslexia, hahah): The human brain is a dick. First off, the bastard it split in two, and not only does each half control vastly different things that would be handled SO much better if their wasn't a disconnect in the way, but they also control the opposite eyes and limbs! The hell is up with that.

Secondly, it thinks. Too. Damn. Much. About everything and everything, and will wind up making your teeth wrap around to take a great big bite outta it when it gets on a tangent about thinking with a blood pumping apparatus instead of shutting right the hell up and just letting you enjoy the heart and the weird metaphor associated with it.

And lastly, it has a KILLER way of giving in and shutting off... RIGHT when you need it most. Typically, when you absolutely need reason, analysis, or judgment, your brain's got a funny way of saying "SEE YA BRO" and leaving you hanging.

So tell your brain and your heart to sod off, and just do YOU.

[Helbereth]

If you continually use the same name on the internet, the anonymity of it is dispelled. This I have learned.

I've used 'Helbereth', a smirking convolution of Tolkien Elvish, as my internet name since 1999. Google is a foul elephant with an extensive memory, and, by now, it knows my name. Thus, when I seek real anonymity, I have my secondary stand-by name, Voxile (or when Helbereth is taken, which is exceedingly rare). You'll note that I didn't even create an account for Voxile, but merely used it as my guest name when posting. That has made editing my previous recountings quite impossible - and I think I prefer it that way. I wrote them as I remembered things, good and bad, and it was rather cathartic as I said. Not being able to go back and retread my words makes what I said carry more meaning somehow, at least to me.

In any case, the deception was merely me hiding behind another wall, and I'm glad to have pushed through it.

[Total Destruction]

Well there you go.

No harm done, I guess. Catharsis. Handle it.

[Xiious]

Small Update:

Moved in. Few weeks then internet. WooHoo~!

Remember everyone.

MOMENTAI! ~Terriormon

Xious