I’ve never liked the phrase GO WITH THE FLOW

You didn’t like the way I dressed – you read some of my poetry and cried – you were upset by my taste in books – & many times when I expressed a different opinion/point of view than yours, you seemed to think that opinion/point of view of mine was created by or heavily influenced by other people rather than being my own opinion that happened to differ from yours.

That started a very long time ago. I remember it happening a lot back when I was in college. If my opinion wasn’t the same as yours, you seemed to think my opinion was created by/influenced by/controlled by others. For one small example, when instead of being anti-abortion, I became pro-choice, you seemed to think that must have been due to somebody else, rather than due to my own opinion changing as I became an adult.

Since you’ve often seemed to think I’m someone who is overly influenced by others (and since I have always disagreed with that perspective of yours about me), part of me was overly worried/concerned about the chance that you might be using my post-stroke situation as some sort of excuse to rid me of someone/something you had never really liked – and since I don’t want another adult to make a choice for me too quickly (or at all for that matter, because I don’t think adults should try to make lifestyle choices for other adults – offering opinions is one thing; but repeatedly telling someone what they should do is another thing), it took me longer to make my own choice.

I tend to be a slow decision maker anyway, even about little things – and when it comes to a big, major lifestyle decision, I sure don’t want to make my choice too fast. For the most part, it is up to each adult to make their own choices when ready/willing. If it took me too long by some people’s standards, oh well. Lots of things take me too long by some people’s standards and it is important to me to try my best to stay attuned to my own standards/thoughts/feelings/perspectives.

I strongly dislike it when I try to express how I am feeling about something and the person I’m talking to interrupts me and says something like, ‘No, that is NOT the way you feel’ as though I am making up my own thoughts/feelings or as if they think they might be more aware of my own thoughts/feelings than I am. WTF!?! Yes, I have lots of mixed feelings, but that doesn’t make me a faker, a lying person, or a person who wants someone else to tell me how I should feel or how I do feel.

Let me express myself my way.

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(Woke up in the middle of the night a while back and felt compelled to write those notes on papers beside my bed and have now decided to post them here. They probably sound semi-random, but I wanted to write them down again and then throw the papers away).