A legit cafe in Italy?

Ok so for the record, my lovely friends living in Rome, Fetrinelli has a almost Starbucks like cafe upstairs and its brilliant. It's ALMOST like being in a Starbucks again, sans functional internet and crappy music, but I'll take what I can get. And in return I am delivering a bit of a deep blog today with crap I've been thinking over for a while now.

I know I am really open about just about everything. You will find out anything about my life whether or not you want to know, but people who know me better know I glaze over sometimes. There are times when I'm content to just sit by myself, or stare out a window. I don't know how to cope or what to feel and I put up this impenetrable wall so I can sort out my emotions. Especially if you hurt my feelings, it's quite difficult to insult of offend me, but when it does happen it takes me a while to sort it out. I know why I do, but I'm not 100% sure that any of my friends understand. I can attempt to give you a bit of an idea, but really its such a complicated shit fest im not even sure a therapist could deal with this, oh trust me they've tried but there's bigger issues in my life that we're just not going to go near.

So for those of you who aren't aware I was raised in a cult, and when I say cult I don't mean like we believe in vampires and aliens and shit like that, it was a legitimately emotionally damaging situation. I don't blame my parents at all for this, in fact I think that it actually provided me with the structure in my childhood that I needed in order to function and there was a lot of great things that came out of it. The main problem though is that I was told during the first 14 years of my life that this was life and this was the way it was supposed to be. This controlling and emotionally manipulative situation was how the world is supposed to function. I was taught that all these other families and people had problems and that I needed to not go near them, that if you weren't 100% with us you were wrong and going to hell, and that personal thought was WRONG. There was a way it was supposed to be and you did not deviate from that. Ok that's great and all, but that doesn't really fit into any form of integration with the rest of the world so the obvious solution presented itself. We didn't integrate. We didn't have friends outside of church which was ok, we spent 5 or so days a week at church so it was essentially our life anyways. But the boundaries just weren't there. We weren't individual families, we were all one family and punishment could be administered by any adult. The goal was to teach me how to behave perfectly no matter who was around. Well if you are reading this I'm gonna assume you know me at least a little and are fully aware of the fact that trying to control me or even figure me out is a long lost cause. So while my mother understood me, as much as she was allowed to, that doesn't mean that any of the other adults did. I have a lot of really hurtful memories from that time in my life and honestly I still carry them with me and probably always will.

When the cult broke up I was left as an extremely confused 13 year old kid. Complete with braces and a perm and everything else horrible in the middle. I had no reference for emotions. Sure I knew people could hurt you, but I was also taught that I was supposed to allow them too because they knew better than me. The end of middle school and high school was one of the hardest times in my life. I wanted to be like everyone else and had no idea how. My mom told me I was normal, I was too young for the cult to have affected me. I just needed to get on with my life, make new friends. But it really wasn't that simple. I had no idea what normal even was! I could honestly be talked into ANYTHING because I assumed it was normal. I trusted everyone, I mean isn't that what I had been taught, that no matter who they were if they were in your life you were supposed to believe them 100%. This in turn led to terrible self confidence issues. Why was I never good enough for these people? Why would people want to hurt me? I didn't understand and honestly I still sorta don't. I still believe everyone has my best intentions at heart and occasionally do deserve a solid slap upside the head.

Well let's fast forward to present day. So so much of this part of my life affects me now. I gravitate toward teaching and kids because I understand them. They trust the adults in their life, and especially as a dive instructor I know that my students in the water trust me, and that in my mind is the hierarchy of how life is supposed to be. Everything makes sense to me in situations where there is control and submission. That definitely wasn't supposed to sound as bondage-y as it came out, but the more I think about it I think this explains why I'm attracted to the people and men that I am. To my fucked up mind every situation has a dominating factor and a submissive one. And given the fact that I'm convinced everything I do is wrong it sorta explains why I tend to just roll over and take whatever. Well that is changing. I am done making stupid decisions just for others opinions. Making decisions I know are wrong in order to get approval from those around me. I am constantly groveling for the positive opinions of others and that's not healthy.