Just who the hell is this NoJoN guy anyway?

Imagine that one day someone comes up to you and says,"Guess what? Everything that you been told, know and think about yourself is a lie!". If someone actually told you that, what would you say? More importantly, what would you think? Well, one day about 5 months ago someone actually said that to me. Not only did this person (who happens to be a Doctor) tell me that but he also told me that I had to learn a completely different language (in a sense).

You see I was brought up in a household where I was treated far worse than most people treat their pets. I was not loved, I was not comforted, I was not protected and I most certainly was not nurtured. This is not some sob story designed to gain sympathy from people because there are cases that are far, far worse than anything that I experienced growing up. What I'm getting at is that due to the way that I was treated in our household, I was received what could only be described as programming. This programming formed the foundation of how I viewed myself and all the interactions that I had with people up until the very moment that I was told that I had to learn a new language. That new language is the language of loving myself and believing that I am a good person. Um....okay, seems easy enough......NOT!

So this really begs the question, "Just who the hell am I?". I literally always believed that there was something wrong with me and that's why I was treated in the manner that I was by various members of my family. That is a very powerful message to grow up with, this led to deductions like "No one likes or understands me.", "There is something wrong with me.", and "I'm always going to be alone because I don't deserve to be loved.". These aren't conscious thoughts either, these are so natural to me that I still struggle with them today. It was so automatic for me, I never questioned it....ever...until about 5 months ago. So, I have to learn this new language but to really begin, I have to figure out who I am in the first place. Everyday I wake up and I have to be mindful of random thoughts that come into my head. I have to ask myself, "Is this really me or is this just my programming telling me what to think?". I'm not going to lie to you, it's really hard. Where does the programming end and where do I begin? Which thoughts are actually my own? More difficult still, which thoughts are correct? Am I a good person or am I a bad one?

This has created a bit of an identity crisis for me. I want very much to love me and accept myself for who I am but I really have no idea who that is. I can tell you things like I'm a huge Dave Matthews Band fan, I'm extremely liberal, I love all things science fiction, I wish I was more of a hippie, my dogs are the most important people in the whole world to me and I seem to have a predisposition for sports that involve going downhill at high rates of speed and crashing. None of that tells me how I feel about myself though. People do say that I am a nice guy and everything but that really doesn't matter if I don't believe it myself. I will say that I have made a fair number of steps toward a more balanced view of myself but there are still significant hurdles in my path. Bumping into my ex-girlfriend at DMB at the Gorge this year really dealt me a significant blow. About this time last year things go so out of hand in our relationship and I was manipulated so badly that I actually have a 4 inch long self inflicted scar on my right arm. Lisa and her family took my existing programming and threw it into meltdown. I have no idea how badly I was manipulated but occasionally I have an "AHA" moment of clarity and I am truly staggered. I still have such a hard time even accepting that people could be so cruel and that I didn't deserve anything that was thrust upon me during that 6 month period. I'm never going to know the truth and that really bothers me! Was I really the best person I could be in the situation? I don't know and it doesn't matter......but it does matter to me. That is the problem, that is my programming talking there. My programming wants to know the real situation because it refuses to believe that I didn't deserve exactly what I got. I hate it so much! I just want to know so I can make my own judgement! Nothing is what it seems..ever...and that's what makes it so hard!

I have to be very careful at this point in time so I don't fall back into old patterns. I am doing much better but I am struggling at this point. The important thing is that I do struggle though. Struggling means that I am at least questioning the automatic thoughts that pop into my head on a daily basis. Struggling means I am trying and not giving up. I am in a very vulnerable position right now, the weather is changing and that means no more mountain biking in the near future. I have a good group of friends but with two exceptions, none of them live here in Missoula so my support system is not where I would like it to be. I am doing fairly well at work but there is absolutely no positive feedback present there and there are very few people who I can trust and who actually know my story. I refuse to give up though, I have to stay as positive as I possibly can be against all odds. I can do this, it isn't going to be easy but I can do it. It's going to take some long, hard work but I'm going to find out who this NoJoN person is....and in the end, I will love him.