When I was about 31 I was attending a local college and meet a girl that I thought we could be boyfriend and girlfriend. We talked a lot on the phone and got to know each other, but as we got going out together I found that I felt lost, I didn't know how I should act around her. We went for a walk in the park one time and she threw a snowball at me playfully. I had never seen how other boys acted in this kind of situation and I didn't know if I should throw a snowball back or chase her or what. I felt nothing, numb, so I couldn't act on that ether. I broke up with her after about two months because I felt really uncomfortable and stressed out trying to be her boyfriend. In college I was working on finishing my first year of a Bac. of Science. I got half way though the year when I felt like I hit a wall. I didn't know what it was but I knew that I needed to do something else before I could go on with my studies. I didn't have a clue what I needed to do but until I could figure out what it was I needed to do and did it there wasn't much use in taking any more schooling, so I withdrew from college. I got a job delivering furniture and appliances for a big furniture store and after a few weeks my muscles built up and everything was going good. That is until one morning I woke up to get ready to go to work and I just freaked out. I was very stressed and I didn't want to leave the house for anything, so I didn't. I stayed home for almost a week and of course I didn't have a job after that. I think now that this happened for two reasons one is that I needed to do something, like before, before I could do anything else and the other is I have always had a strong hatred for doing anything that requires heavy lifting. It was something that I always forced myself to do because it was expected of me both by others and myself.
About this time my mom sent me a photo album of at trip that I went on with my family when I was about 12. Did it ever bring back memories and pain, to the point that I found that I was in pain all the time and couldn�t stop thinking about this album. So I put it in about four grocery bags so I couldn�t see it and buried it in the back of a cupboard. Doing this didn�t stop the pain or stop me thinking about it all the time. I felt in a real dilemma because I knew that I had to get rid of it but I knew also that my mom would be heart broken if I did. But after a few more days I couldn�t take the pain anymore and threw the album into a garbage bin a fair ways from my place. The pain stopped but I have felt bad that I had to do that ever since.
A couple of years later I was taking a log scaling course at the same college and as part of the coarse we had to take a school bus to the lumber mill. One day I was getting on the bus and decided that I was going to sit up near the front and did. One of the other students asked me to move because he wanted the seat that I was in, and I said no. Well everyone on the bus turned and looked at me and I was unsettled by the attention. I kept my seat but afterwards I asked one of the other students why everyone had starred at me when I said no. He said that that everyone looked because I had never stood up for myself in the past and this was something new. I thought about this and thought about how I had seen other boys react when they were in a similar situation. The way they reacted was very different to the way I usually reacted and I decided that I needed to act more like them. So I pictured in my mind how others reacted and used all my mental energy to force myself to act the same way. When I did this I felt terrible I thought at the time that I felt terrible because I was different, and I didn't want to be different. But now I think I felt terrible because I am a pretty passive person a lot of the time and basically I was beating myself up inside, using all my mental energy to force me to be someone that I wasn't.
About 5 years later I was working as an assistant line locator, locating and marking buried pipes and wires. It involved a lot of travel and I found that after working at the job for a while when we left town I would go to sleep while the other person drove even if I had just got up a few hours before. I found that those were some of the best sleeps that I have ever had. A little later I found that I liked to give over control of myself to the person I was working with. I would do anything they asked within limits, I enjoyed not being in control and I found this fascinating about myself. When we were traveling I felt that the other person that I was working under would take care of me and all I had to do was to do what he asked of me. And having that feeling of being taken care of gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling, it felt right and I felt at peace and that�s why I could have so wonderful sleeps.
