Into the Madding Crowd

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

I built such a prison for myself!

I must get to know myself.

I need to be true to myself unerringly.

Surprise It Is, To Find Relief In the Madding Crowd

These things I must “learn” to do despite mental illness, mood swings, thought disorder, lowering of feelings, brain endorphins missing or flooding. Unerringly, no matter what, despite my fears, aging, slowing down, being tired and sick of being alone, overcoming past evidence and past fears AND whatever fears and evidence may yet befall, I select out and CHOOSE to do this – “all in”. Despite how scary it is to put myself out there (in the madding crowd) for fear of falling back, I choose this!

 Don’t let your circumstances be a basis or motivation for any decision. Circumstances are only effects of past decisions. Only this moment is real and you can change anything from here. (Comment from the female caller who’d cared for her mother a couple of years before her mother’s death, then became deathly ill herself. She recovered immediately (almost)upon hearing the preceding words at some meeting. From early AM call. First time on (part of) it live! Good Stuff! 

Into the Madding Crowd

Attribution: Chris Downer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Puddletown,_parish_church_of_St._Mary_-_geograph.org.uk_-_474200.jpg

Seeking Madding Crowd Meaning, and more, Seeking “Madding Me” Meaning

I’ve been thinking for a while now that I (at least) nearly ruined myself with this last episode of clinical depression. I had a “sweetie” a few years back tell me (at different well – spaced times) that I was “pretty” negative, that I must have low self-esteem, that I tended to think the worst of others. Madding, I certainly was!

None of those things were how I saw myself. That (my not seeing myself that way) was certainly an impediment to my overcoming truly negative aspects of myself and so I am deeply appreciative of him being so forthright, and more, having an influence on me such that I “woke up” (it took me nearly the hundred years Rip Van Winkle slept) to the truth I was portraying outwardly.

I suppose everyone who has had to face that they are not as they think themselves to be can relate. What about the rest of you? I’m guessing many of you are as I once was, (for untold years), and may not know yourselves as well as you think. Do you avoid looking at yourself, truthfully? Are there things about yourself you only touch upon lightly before finding something else to think about? Are there some things you will not talk about, even to yourself? Are there events you know you experienced in your life that are more and more blurry with time, and you want them to stay that way? That was not stated strongly enough. You insist they stay that way?

As for me, I love words. I love talking. I love when someone will dialogue with me and enjoy it as thoroughly as I do. It matters very much to me that I can do that with someone (much more often than has ever occurred in my life) who knows how to love and value and appreciate me just as I am and themselves just as they are.

My friend, Caroline, comes closest to perfection in that. Read also: /anacarin/blog/oh-i-really-dont-want-to-end-this-awesome-day-by-crying/ and/or /anacarin/blog/blessed-friendship/

Madding is Not Necessarily a Bad Thing

For that reason (and my lifelong interest in Psychology, that I have a minor in) it has been an unfulfilled desire of mine to have enjoyed counseling with someone who might see me more as a peer, rather than someone lacking in some way, i.e. someone stuck in madding mode. There are issues in my life near the size of Mount Everest (I do exaggerate, – some) that befuddle me utterly. You could say I stand too close.

I’m 62 years young now, (another change initiated by the call I referred to earlier and listened to this morning, I know I have been intimating death is near) so with many sighs and some inner tears, I once again attempt to face self therapy.

You see, within the past week my sister talked with me about how I sadden her with being stuck in the past (at least enough for it to be notable) and my best and most open with me friend (when asked if she sometimes saw me a particular way) suggested maybe my deserve level was too low.  That could be hand in hand with living in a madding way.

Here I am, back where I was in my twenties, thinking and feeling like I was in my salad days, and now, feeling pressed once again, to do something I dearly want to do. [Ah, the internal insight detector just took a sudden leap. Here it comes! Perhaps I really can therapeutize – no, no, spell check, away with thee, – you can not spoil this fun, now!

Isn’t that just the most interesting thing? I’ve pondered grimly, pendulum swinging back and forth with gruesome vigor for three to four weeks now and never realized what – exactly – was the underlying crux of my pain.  Employing a different word — madding, writing with you folks a sort of specter in my mind and taking still another stab at the same familiar concerns unlocked yet another golden nugget — feeling pressed, meaning I am resistant, to do something I dearly want to do.  That will have to be another post.

Thanks Wikipedia and the original source:  Source:

Want to be a part of today’s Madding Crowd?  You’ll find it makes it all worthwhile and pays you, too:

/almostasecret.php?id=anacarin