How is it some people completely fall apart after trauma while some develop sociopath qualities but appear functional while others you could just never tell looking at their lives that they have even gone thu anything? I don't have a magic answer for you, let me know if you ever figure it out. Personally, I think it comes down to community, even if they don't notice the abuse. Never underestimate the impact you can have on a child even if you don't even have any by sometimes just being there and doing something nice. Sometimes doing something about an abusive situation can also be tricky and each action causes ripples in a pond, understanding sometimes the repercussions maybe more severe that the current situation. Life is a fickle bitch that's for sure. Those are things you come to understand as an adult and walk thru life with eyes wide open, then you realize how wide shut your own eyes can be sometimes.
I was always inquisitive as a kid, I wanted to know the why's of everything and still am that way today and I'm more stubborn than a donkey's ass. I always asked the questions nobody wanted to answer, pointed out hypocrisy where I saw fit. Having gone to a catholic church led school, there was a lot there alone😅. Is that what saved me? I analyzed everything, everybody, often just to gage the mood figuring out when to be feisty and stand up for myself or just safer to shut the fuck up and take it, I trusted nobody yet a rare few instantly. I don't know what came first, the chicken or the egg. Am I like that because of growing up in these circumstances young or was I just like that naturally? I don't remember or know the difference.
What I remember the most yet not, is my own mind compartmentalized and even blocked some events because I was just not old enough walking about like a computer storing data to analyze for future use. The memories I remember are obviously the information that stored without being processed. In school was the same, I could memorize nearly anything, read so many books, it was one of my physical escapes if I could find a quiet corner to quiet my mind, help me cope I guess. Sometimes just "escaping" my body when it was really bad or even just extremely annoyed, where did I go, I dunno...just not there. Some memory periods for me are just blanks....no memory exist but often ended with people shaking me to wake up when I was just staring in the distance not moving for long periods. I just learned to not feel anything physically or emotionally in whatever way I could.
I was catching on to what she was doing manipulating reality, like somehow because I was a little kid I was stupid and would come to believe her side as I grew up and she and the rest of society she had convinced of my "evil child " ways if repeated enough. I could see other people that didn't buy into the nonsense, my friend's parents, they didn't behave in this way. I observed a great deal from them too, not understanding but comparing, trying to rationalize. Form my own opinions, not what I was told. I wasn't remembering shit wrong as she was saying, she was plain wrong and that was her way of getting away with it. Learning to play along to her games avoided a lot of extra punishment outside of her bad moods. I learned her manipulative ways to a science and tried to stay a step ahead so I could at least see patterns and stuff coming ahead of time and just brace myself for it, mentally prepare of sorts.
I kept doing that in early adulthood in chaotic situations I couldn't grasp. Obviously that caused a few issues and that was really hard to get a handle on that because it just happened. Nowadays they call that disassociation, as a kid I think that is a natural skill for most that you unlearn as you grow up. Where if one can do it consistently , did you really experience it? The thing is your mind doesn't remember but sometimes your body does and you end up with triggers that you don't know where they come from. Like obviously the fair incident. I remember being difficult and one of the threats was to send me to my unknown "dad" when she didn't want me around. Was he even suppose to show up? She could have also said that to appease her conscience or sending me a message for being whinny too. I wouldn't put it passed her, I don't want to speculate into tin foil territory, we can all agree that was a really bad thing to do from the get go.
I remember her dropping me off and feeling terrified, thirsty, overheating and being sick in public because I was so scared and feeling shitty after her feeding me something I was allergic to (also auto immune and too much sun = really bad). Anything after that is a big blank until sitting at the counter at my gramps with everyone poking fun at my sunburn and her bitching how it was sperm donor's fault and irresponsible that a total stranger to each other didn't show up to pick me up after she dropped me off. I don't even remember exactly how or who brought me back to my gramps, I don't think it was my mom, I think it was one of his customers that found me(he used to take me to work with him when we visited, at his sewing machine store and his old ladies knew me). Talk about double standards. Obviously I saw the hypocrisy pretty young. To this day, I still have crowd anxiety but mostly they are only physical symptoms with no emotions behind it and it's embarrassing. I get it at the fair, concerts, busy venues, tourist hotspots ...whatever. It only last like 10-20 minutes and it passes and get to having fun after that but the whole thing remains embarrassing and I can't do anything to help it. Just the initial situation triggers a weird physical response. Maybe that's a downside from disassociation moments? Point being, with some of it blocked out maybe it helped me along with other abused kids?
Obviously, this is just one example, this happens with a few things I may never understand. As far as I can personally remember I started doing this at 7, that was a rough year for me... a lot happened in a short period of time and it was too much for me to handle stress wise but later conversations with adults from the community suggest that I started doing this at 4years old after my bff got hit by a car.
The fact that at 7 something inside of me snapped, I have a lot of other shitty memories of that age and surgery, being fed my allergen daily, dynamics changing in the house with an added sibling...). It feels like she officially stopped loving me, she had a perfect little family and I was ruining it. Come to think of it it may have been the first time she told me she should have gotten an abortion and I understood what it meant and became suicidal and would hide in the ditch and jump in front of cars last minute hoping to get hit (that's where the lie with social services about me pushing my sister in traffic comes from) It's her distorting what was actually happening ... Obviously all the vehicles stopped and against my wishes at the time I never got hit. From that moment on is where my brain really started connecting dots and analyzing everyone and every situation.
This is how kids learn to deal with shit they can't wrap their brains around and that might be an advantage over an older victim in the recovery when some stuff you just can't remember. The worse the trauma, probably the more often blanks happen and the trauma is stored differently out of conscious reach but it still has repercussions just the same, maybe more physical than emotional and those triggers are much harder to control, it's like your nerves just gets the best of you.
As a teen I turned bitter and fit all the stereotypical criteria of a "troubled teen" and started lashing out even more and become more toxic, even after I started getting my life together, I still had alcohol and drug issues very young and hung out at bars at 16. Keeping myself safe meant being in public as much as I could, having some form of adults watching my back because some of these pedos would stalk me to my house, my work, they would drive up and down the road as I walked to work so even at home I was never safe, only ever in public. Wherever I moved to, they would find me, it was a small town.
Naturally, crowds party all that, done it all young, how my apartment never got overly trashed is beyond me, respectful friends I suppose. Obviously, there was a lot seriously wrong with me but I had learned to judge people quickly and surround myself with people that were good to me. Luckily I also recognized that drowning the trauma also wasn't dealing with it and attracting more, obviously I wasn't ready to deal with it but as long as I didn't I would never stop cutting myself with victim mentality self sabotage making my life worse in the self fulfilling prophecy they tried to create. I had become my own abuser. That's what many child abuse victims become, the ones that don't function properly permanently, they become their own internal abuser repeating every insult hurled at them over and over. It becomes your thinking legit. To this day, I never experienced anything overly bad since moving here and have done good things but I still talk to myself that way but I am able to recognize the pattern and reverse it before it takes root again but it still does get the best of me at times when I'm under a lot of stress...less and less as time goes on tho so that's a win.
That's where I stress on community is important, many could never recognize the abuse and neglect, those that did may not have known how to help and did what they could. No matter what, someone in the community often, a random guardian angel thrown my way to help me even if it was talk and try to rationalize things or help resolve some of my past or understand myself better. Offer me food if I was hungry... Talking to children like they are mini adults can sometimes be the best thing you ever do for them even if they are not old enough to understand, I still remembered them much later when it was time for me to "get it". That guaranties every time they don't understand something, they will come to you because they wont fear ridicule so if there is some wonky stuff going on, that's probably when you will find out. I learned pretty young that if I was quick to recognize which adult I could trust, sometimes I had to blindly trust strangers and that's fucked up. Reality is, when you're a kid, you can't do anything for yourself so you need adults and their guidance to navigate thru life and avoiding landmines. If you are not getting it at home, it has to come from somewhere.
Getting most of my wisdom and advice from strangers growing up was always a strange concept but it was better than nothing. To this day, my entire life, I never had any adult guidance so a lot of concepts I had to learn on my own therefore I understand/feel things differently than mostly everyone else so I do things a lot differently, the result is the same so I don't question my weirdness too much. After years of watching people, getting older and spending more time on the near by reserve, I got to learn about residential school survivors, I could secretly analyze them like I did everyone else. Not that it will make anyone reading this less creeped out, I also do this with myself continually. I question absolutely everything ALL OF THE TIME. Makes my brain hurt somedays.
Anyone that doesn't know what they are, not my friends but many of their parents would have been taken from their families and taken to catholic institutions to be reformed as "white" commonly referred to as savages at the time until they were reformed (the last one closed in 1996). These institutions were rife with abuse and neglect far worse than I ever experienced or could even imagine and the parents couldn't rescue their children out of there. It's pretty horrific actually if you can stomach looking into it, several mass graves with thousands of tiny abused children bodies were found since and many of them, their parents were never informed, they just never saw their kid again and that was it. Seeing the direct aftermath it was a goldmine of information to analyze and rationalize. Much like any child abuse, some came out fully functional and great leaders and voices against abuse, others remained toxic repeating the patterns within their families and others completely destroyed emotionally or committed suicide. I know, I've always been surrounded by so much darkness as a kid. There is no school like the school of hard knocks.
As A younger child, I never understood why so many of my friends parents would put up with the community judgement for being different, observing a different culture and speaking a different language. Indigenous and french had been know to be allies at one point in history (just the one time around 1755 where they defeated the british together Great battle of Annapolis or Acadian deportation now referred to as Cajun in Louisiana if you are a history and ancestry buff) so still better than living in english territory for a Native. I suspected later in life maybe they were protecting their kids from the fuckery, planed ahead, played along, played white, raised their children white, away from their community and family, just picking the one they feared less just like I had most of my child hood, just play along for now until you can take control. Leaving their community behind to save their children from the pain that could have happened if they stayed. Kept their story quiet but even young I could see some things went on at some point. I couldn't see what the pain was, just that it was silently there on their minds, on their hearts, in their eyes. When they say the eyes are the window to the soul, it's real!
At the time, it was hard to get stories because not many were willing to revisit the pain but a few shared their story. Lots to digest as a teenager but it gave me hope that if I could even become half the person they are after all they have been thru, maybe there was a chance for me, I just had to hang in there and work hard and I would get there eventually. That didn't really fix anything because I still had yet to understand what or how to resolve anything. What does resolve even mean? Is there some MIB dudes that show up eventually and wipe your memory clean with an alien device? Don't judge, it was a cool movie at the time. At the time, my roommate loved to watch Dr Phil and Dr. Oz show that often had episodes around child abuse and similar situations, seeing and adult with substance help me untangle feelings and attach everything where it was due to process.
I still watch it and untangle. I hear what I need to when I'm ready to learn it perhaps? I still learn from the show but now I have an adult perspective looking in, some of this shit hits you like a ton of bricks once you understand what really happened and how sick it was. It helped validate my experience even if I wasn't sharing it with anyone. Parts of me still thinks it was better to hit me like a ton of bricks as an adult rather than understand it as a child, that would have been far more damaging. As a kid, you truly don't know something is wrong that is why we don't really speak out. My friends get punished for bad grades, I get punished for bad grades too. It's the same to my eyes, a shitty child brings bad grades and parents don't like that. Pretty normal right? Their shitty grades was not passing, my shitty grades was an 89. Now that there is context it changes the story but a child doesn't understand the distinction because you are born and thought you are supposed to trust your parents, they know what's best for you. A lot of things as a kid, you just don't question, growing up authority was one of them.
Other reasons why many stay quiet even if they know something is wrong. It's hard to get a child removed from a narcissist's home since they control most situations to come out on top. Trying to speak out gets you more beatings and abuse if it failed. Also doesn't help the self esteem building skills. Sometimes being quiet is just better. They somehow make you believe that they are the only person that could love the terrible mess you are so you better stay and often the victim will believe from being so mentally broken down over time. Often economic circumstances are a big contributor, not having the money or skills to make it on your own, especially a child. When a narrative was built against you, it's simpler not to, the comments most people give in return are unhelpful even if they were well intentioned. They just end up doing more harm and discourage talking about it. Every body claims to hate abuse but every time anyone tries to talk about it, it's here goes another whinny bla bla insert whatever insult.
That is so fucking hurtful but good people say really dumb statements not understanding the harm they are actually causing by dismissing victims or minimizing the experience because someone else had it worse somewhere in the world. Trauma is trauma, great or small, it's not a competition and it hurts along with being confusing, adult or child man or woman or... That is just justifying abuse and that is how it is ignored in large scale in society. Someone has it worse somewhere. Abuse victims themselves are minimizing their own experience by saying this over and over again to themselves, often choosing to stay in their circumstances because "someone else has it worse somewhere". Stop saying that to yourself or others, it's not a justification for shitty behavior even if it's not abusive.
Obviously getting therapy is better but it was used as a tool against me to manipulate my reality as I was dragged to multiple different ones until she could find one she could con with her narrative. Every time I tried to speak out, it just got me in more trouble and punishments. She did the same with social workers. Clearly my trust for anything establishment was too far gone for me to get anywhere productive and even in my mess I knew that. It's not the advice I didn't trust, it was the individuals. With the age of the internet emerging, it helped my ability to research for their effective tools and advice to get thru these situations and self healing along with an objective level headed opinion of what is toxic. I was never ready to talk to them. You now officially even know more about my than my closest friends. They mostly just know about the situations where they were directly involved in or witnessed.
Later in my early 20's, I reconnected with a girl I went to school with, she was a few years older and remembered me, she didn't know but all at the same time knew I had gone thru stuff and always offered her hear as we became friends since she had become a psychologist herself and was fresh out of school, she was a mind looking for perspective. I never talked to her about it much but I used to ask her a lot of random psychology questions and throwing the random child abuse scenarios in there and I know she knew what was going on but it was helpful. I already trusted her when I was a kid since she used to shutdown bullies from her class and we were friends later so it was easier. I think part of her was just intrigued and fun tend to just happen around me since I had lived really publicly for a while and she had never experienced that being the quiet type. Everyone knew who I was even if I didn't know them. That kind of became exhausting too because trying to clean your act up when everyone is dragging you to party and you like it, well after a while it was time to actually grow up and become something. There was a lot of things wrong with me back then.
I realized the patterns I had learned as a child from behaving just like my parents to my own wild upbringing. Good or bad, I did what I had to do to survive and that is all and I learned some real toxic things along the way that were in my everyday life and that was ok but those patterns no longer served me and new ones healthy ones had to be developed. Some may not have been toxic but still unproductive and that also had to go. After all of my childhood of being told how shitty I was, I was faced with how shitty I was. Not in the sense they meant tho more so what they had brought me up to be but definitely a huge blow to the self esteem I already didn't have. There is a feeling of worthlessness right there. But as long as I remained in the victims mindset, I would become one of those that don't make it or those sick ones that repeat the cycles in society with everything they touch. In other words, like them.
Am I capable of really messing someone's head up? YES of course, I was raised with a series of how to be a sociopath instruction manuals, for real to protect yourself from one, you have to pretty much become one yourself to think like them and get them at their game or even see their game. Parts of me still wonders am I a sociopath? I can be one, people that mess with me and corner me end up regretting it so fucking dearly so I can certainly defend myself against another NPD if need be and it has been helpful in my career since I can't go complain or quit my job every time I encounter one , it takes one to understand one is probably a fair assumption. I other words, yes I have hints of a person with NPD if I want with those I want but I only use it on them when they try fucked up games stuff with me once my point is across and gotten I stop, never on normal people. I know what I know, I'm a pro at it too and I know when it's wrong to use it and I don't because it's wrong. At the same time, a person with actual NPD can't even fake normalcy that good or make the distinction between what is actually right and wrong, only their own definition of it. Who knows, I turned out 50 shades of functional messed up.
Books, books, books. There some great wisdoms and insights out there especially if you explore ancient wisdoms from old cultures including various indigenous cultures around the world. Some stories even written in such a relatable way, they are amazing. Much teaching about the self and taking accountability. That's another long post in itself, maybe I can write one more later centered around personal accountability and the books. Obviously taking my circumstances in my own hands at an early age, I had a lesson on accountability. Also part of The NPD abuser tactics is projecting so I was held accountable for all of her shortcomings and internal flaws. Somehow she made everything always my fault because nobody would question it. She wasn't acting out of sorts because of me, it was just her. Took me a long time to admit that to myself.
Obviously all of this took years and I didn't really get into a stable relationship until my mid 20's obviously afraid of anyone or anything. It's not that I ever had trouble getting or keeping dates, I wasn't really able to trust too many and the road was bumpy along the way and it was super lonely. Not really having learned a happy middle ground for boundaries setting and keeping yet or any ability to communicate them properly. Internalizing everything I felt all my life, that was quite the task to learn. Once I figured it out, it went a lot smoother and I did find a good man and a perfect fit. Just the right amount of the same and the right amount of opposites. We balance each other out and learn from each other everyday.
Some judge and I appear cold but really I'm just cautious and I watch everyone deciding if I want certain personality traits in my life or not. Obviously, if I was trying to iron out my own toxic traits, inviting similar traits would be counterproductive so I became really selective to whom gets to stay in my entourage. A lot of people take offense to that. It's too much for some to understand and I don't know how to explain or maybe they are not receptive, I don't waste time trying to figure out mind games and move on from them quickly. Did that lead to self sabotage in some instances? Probably but I wont sit there and nag either. Did that mean breaking hearts that didn't deserve it? Sure it did but I don't expect anyone to change to fit my abuse or my triggers. I find people that wont feel like they are walking on eggshells around my triggers as I iron them out because that is not fair to anyone but it's also not fair to me to try to heal in an environment that makes me on edge. I give the opportunity and if it isn't taken, well that's on them. I get me and my shortcomings even when I'm not able to communicate them. People have a hard time grasping that concept. Obviously you don't solve all this shit in one day, it's a lifetime commitment of unpacking a few things at a time until the lessons are truly learned and understood then moving on to something more complicated. Trying to get at everything at once lead nowhere.
Heck some of it you can't even tame out, you can only learn to acknowledge them and stop yourself by not giving in to your first instinct, meaning not reacting to situations right away. I get called miss no reaction all the time for it but I never say or do stuff I overly regret, even my mistakes were somewhat calculated. That also messes with people when they can't tell if I'm happy or angry or anything, they just see the wheels turning but at the same time, the people with negative agendas will begin to back pedal on their own that way since perception in a big thing with NPD and that can't see how you perceive them, it burns them hard hey will immediately reveal themselves to the trained eye. On top of it, as often the only women, I can't go screaming and pointing out gender inequalities or unacceptable comment to a group of men so often uncomfortable silence for them easily shuts things down since they tend to go by crowd opinion. If I don't react, no one does because they are too afraid to. Something I noticed, they all follow a leader in some way and men care about other men's opinion even if hey will scream from the rooftops they don't give a shit what anyone thinks. Especially the NPD.
It's a huge lesson in self control! A lot of the damage from child abuse is permanent but it's still possible to build a beautiful life after and not be toxic to others or ourselves. The doom and gloom brings such a deep understanding of things, people, the universe, ourselves but find an environment where are toxic skills can be used for good. Even if I sometimes make it seem easy to some, it's still pretty rough out there for women in skilled trades. There is definitely some weirdness going on up there and too much overthinking of everything but I make my life fit around my quirks so they do not impact it negatively so I can focus on the tougher stuff and everyday life along with it while my dark side gets to come out and play but in a controlled productive way that will advance society. Some people need to see stuff the hard way and to experience it is the best way for someone to see things in themselves that maybe they should resolve. Sometime people just do shitty things because they lack perspective or don't understand the repercussions, once they know what it feels like, they get it and stop because they are not necessarily bad people.
A saying stuck with me, I think it's indigenous wisdoms actually. You have 2 wolves inside, a dark and a light one, they both exist and you both need them but the stronger one is the one you feed the most. The dark ones (your demons) are needed to protect and teach you the light one is your wisdom and heart to lead you. The one you feed the most will be the leader. Give the dark wolf just enough food to have energy and feel content and he will follow, feed the light wolf more and he will lead the pack. In other words suppressing your demons don't really work but they can still be put to good use.
By the time I actually talk to some of my coworkers, I have been observing them for years and know a lot about their personalities. I work as a contractor and my workplaces and coworkers change all the time so I may see someone one month a year on a job with over a 1000 people, so it's really not as creepy as it sounds. Unless I work directly with someone, I don't say much. Always having a different crowd and work places, it helps feed my unhealthy people analyzing obsession. Obviously I get to aske questions based on my observations.
It freaks some out but I only approach those I know will talk and be real because I have that figured out by then too. I think it's the initial shock of the strange but on target questions asked, often had many meaningful conversations over it and it actually helps both parties in the end especially in understanding the differences between genders and social pressures and how it is handled for both involved, in turn help make the case for why we are useful at work, a different perspective overall, genders see things differently. I just learned to see things in people, the things they don't talk about. I don't do it to judge, just to understand society as a whole. How individual mindset affect a culture, so on. I think it's a Sagittarian feature. Just want to know the innerworkings of everything. Still today, I'm not fond of people, I can be social when I need to be but I am happy staying at home and avoiding people as much as I can too. I still get out and do stuff, I just don't always have to be busy and enjoy my quiet thinking time. I'm always happy to have a legit conversation just not that interested in small talk just for the sake of doing it.
Over the years I learned to make really smart stupid decisions I like to call calculated leaps of faith that would offer a chance to get ahead and find opportunities based on my quick analysis of character and nothing catastrophic happened. Call it luck or skill, I don't think it matters too much. They could have gone really wrong and I knew it since I play a thousand scenarios in my head before I do anything even today. Especially after being shoved accountability speeches all my life from hypocrites that is a residual effect, an over awareness to consequences to the point where it sometimes scare me from trying things. I'm still working on that one. Obviously having finished high school later in college and getting a degree since then, I still able to try enough to get me where I need to be even with the fear but it does complicate things sometimes.
Obviously there are many social settings and concepts I don't know how to handle or react to because of lack of exposure and understanding. As functional as one gets there will always be some sort of social deficiencies because we have never been taught and some things you can only learn as kids. Growing up in trauma also affects/injure that specific part of the brain where social skills and emotions are processed. There are new studies emerging in Canada that point towards micro dosing of magic mushrooms to potentially help trauma and PTSD victims in controlled doses promotes the growth of new neural pathways. If the clinical studies are successful, perhaps there will be a cure for those abused children who grow up and stay stuck on their recovery.
One that got my attention was why have I been so calm during the madness of 2020, the pandemic and constant fear narrative. Riots here, riots there. Protest clash, the news mis-reporting things, police busting pastors or church service and party goers hiding in a nail salon instead of drug dealers wear 3 masks you will be safer, use glory holes...if you live in Canada you have heard all kinds of nonsense from our leaders and resource allocations. I'm sure it's the same in the US or most countries nowa days. Notice a pattern yet? I do. The world is run by sociopath and they convinced everyone otherwise. It's all you ever known. It's all your parents have ever know. How do you know what we live today is the right way? Do you see flaws in society? things escalading, apathy growing. Is working 9-5 and forking half your pay over every week to support nonsense and to be paid to the same corporations that cheat you and their overpaid salaries while increasing your cost of living not abusive? Those are the signs of abuse. People lashing out and hurting each other in vein are hurt people. Like people telling their parent to get fucked for the first time after being hit. The response to trauma is often loud and misunderstood as many don't know what is wrong or how to fix it, just that something is really wrong.
People whom their heads have been fucked with for far too long in mental NPD abuse from governments and certain controlling billionaires that you cannot see yourselves yet. You still trust the unworthy to keep you safe and have your best interest at heart when they are taking pleasure in psychologically harming you and your children for their own gain. Taking from your quality of life with their entitlements. Some of you may see it. People behaving in selfish ways are people that went without a need being met. The person that goes nuts in society and shoots up places or does fucked shit, is a person that may have been abused one time too many. The prostitute in the street, at some point she saw no other choice to survive ,most likely forced into it and got stuck there never knowing any different. Nobody wakes up one day and say wouldn't it be fun if? Moral decay comes from ignoring the uncomfortable until it's unfixable. Every time we ignore it, we teach our brains that it's ok. We normalize it within ourselves and it becomes a culture, a mindset slowly over time until you just don't even see it at all anymore. Then it becomes the accepted norm and that is not ok.
You may reject the idea now but if you open your eyes, you will see the actions that need cleaning up and the ones actually getting cleaned up. In fact none of it was ever really hidden just not advertised. Once you learn to see it around you, you will see how tlarge scale it truly is. Only once we see it can we can slowly change a culture for the better over time instead of continuing the self destructive path country leaders have us on. It's hard to accept once you see it. Some things are really bad happening under all of our noses, human rights violations and bad ones at that. We are too distracted to see it because we are trained not to unless you know what you are looking for. Many people need healing because of the last year and things will get worse until we heal as a society and eliminate the ills, once you really see you will understand. Raising healthy minds adult or child, man or woman. We are all in dire need of self care and self analysis. Check our bias in either directions, accept our differences and talk to each other. Communicate our needs instead of letting resentment grow to a point of apathy or bitterness and feel like having to fight to be heard.