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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 03 2024, @07:12PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 03 2024, @07:12PM (#1355796)

    I have a step grandson. His is a troubled soul.

    His (chinese) dad never acknowledged him nor ever wanted anything to do with him. His (japanese) mom was a recent immigrant to the USA, and his first five years of life he learned to speak only in japanese.

    By the time he hit elementary school, between his inability to speak with the other children and the anti-asian racism of those children, he became a prime target for bullying. Somewhere in the mix, he learned that socializing meant trying to hurt other people.

    One day - at age seven - he was playing in my backyard with my grandson, and I noticed that in his play he was intent on physically injuring his step-brother. I eventually had to pull him aside and tell him, "If you physically injure the ones you are playing with, no one will want to play with you any more." Sure enough, a half hour later both boys were sitting in the living room - the one begging the other to come out and play, and the other saying he didn't want to anymore.

    That was a dozen years ago. He has now graduated high school, and is living in my son's basement with seemingly no intention of getting a job or a driver's license or doing anything other than playing video games online. He is openly gay - affecting an effeminite persona - and has been in a LTR with one of his mates from high school. He has attempted suicide once, and was saved from death by timely intervention. When attending family events, he often engages in inappropriate PDAs with his boyfriend - seemingly trying to incite the censure of the hosts and other guests. It is almost as if he can't feel normal unless the people around him are despising him.

    No one in the family is quite sure how to help him or guide him into a space where he can begin to be a productive, self-supporting member of society. Still we all root for him and stand ready to assist him in anything that he might intend to accomplish. My wife and I gifted him the tuition for driving school at his graduation, and a year later, we are still waiting for that gift to prove fruitful.

    I cannot fault him for his decisions and actions (or lack thereof) since I have not had to walk through life in his shoes and I cannot imagine the angst he carries within him. Still, I do my best to guide him, as I did when he was seven, by mentioning when he has exceeded bounds of decency and propriety. I do pray for him, that he might one day vanquish the demons that have bedeviled and paralyzed him.

    In similar fashion, Ari, I see you embarked on a quixotic journey that leads nowhere. Still I cannot fault you for your actions and decisions as I am utterly unaware of the angst that is driving you. I did ask God to send me some words that might aid you in attaining some semblance of a normal life, and these are the ones that have come to mind.

    Likewise, I cannot fault janrinok for making efforts to prevent you from exceeding bounds of decency and propriety.

    I would not insult you by presuming to instruct you on how to better your situation. Surely, that is something you will need to find within yourself. I do, however, root for you, and pray that you might somehow reach a truce with the rest of the universe - all in God's good time.

    Meanwhile, I do wish you the best.

    -nostyle

    --
    OBTW, on the internet, you are never the smartest one in the room.

    --
    P.S. I know it is unfair to throw these words at you when you are unable to respond and defend yourself. I have hidden them away, then, in the depths of this deleted journal so that it is not a public censure, but only the final bits of my concern for you. I hope they will prove valuable to you,

    --

    The men that I've been seein', baby
    Well they got their soul up on a shelf
    You know they could never love me
    Cause they can't even love themselves

    -Bonnie Raitt, Love Me Like a Man

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