I've seen that dope walk not associating it with a specific drug, but, of course. On the west side of Washington Square Park. Wonderful writing as usual.
You wrote, almost apologetically, that you were not “trying to forgive” Melissa. But I wonder why not? Forgiveness, in my book at any rate, helps the person who forgives even more than the person who is presumably guilty of some wrongdoing. Melissa may never change or even want forgiveness, let alone ask for it. But in forgiving her, in understanding that addiction is a real problem with a host of co-occurring bad behaviors like chronic lying, and that Melissa is not an evil person in her core, and then choosing to forgive her for whatever wrongs she may have committed in your view, this would be a gift to you. And this is one way to find peace for yourself and to give Melissa a gift beyond the value of any money she has accepted from you.
Another great piece. There’s a passage in this that makes me really think about the way in which all those lies are really just temporary versions of reality for the person who’s telling them. I have to think more about this, since I’m starting to think about writing up some of my own expenses when I was doing my reporting. It seems to me that there’s a way in which the lying is not so much a matter of strategy and trying to get something, as it is a matter of being so unmoored from any stable reality that everything is subject to invention. Maybe that’s part of how someone can lie, so sincerely, as if they believe it just as much as anything else while they are saying it. In the actual experience of addiction, nothing else is real compared to the drug. So if there’s nothing that one actually experiences as real or true, and anything one says this is sort of a lie, or nothing one says is actually a lie, it is just talking. So then whatever lie was told, is easily forgotten. Not sure, and my thoughts are rambling, but you certainly make me think.
I've seen that dope walk not associating it with a specific drug, but, of course. On the west side of Washington Square Park. Wonderful writing as usual.
I hadn’t finished when the comment posted itself!
You wrote, almost apologetically, that you were not “trying to forgive” Melissa. But I wonder why not? Forgiveness, in my book at any rate, helps the person who forgives even more than the person who is presumably guilty of some wrongdoing. Melissa may never change or even want forgiveness, let alone ask for it. But in forgiving her, in understanding that addiction is a real problem with a host of co-occurring bad behaviors like chronic lying, and that Melissa is not an evil person in her core, and then choosing to forgive her for whatever wrongs she may have committed in your view, this would be a gift to you. And this is one way to find peace for yourself and to give Melissa a gift beyond the value of any money she has accepted from you.
Another great piece. There’s a passage in this that makes me really think about the way in which all those lies are really just temporary versions of reality for the person who’s telling them. I have to think more about this, since I’m starting to think about writing up some of my own expenses when I was doing my reporting. It seems to me that there’s a way in which the lying is not so much a matter of strategy and trying to get something, as it is a matter of being so unmoored from any stable reality that everything is subject to invention. Maybe that’s part of how someone can lie, so sincerely, as if they believe it just as much as anything else while they are saying it. In the actual experience of addiction, nothing else is real compared to the drug. So if there’s nothing that one actually experiences as real or true, and anything one says this is sort of a lie, or nothing one says is actually a lie, it is just talking. So then whatever lie was told, is easily forgotten. Not sure, and my thoughts are rambling, but you certainly make me think.
Sounds like she has a nice family giving good advice. In my old age I have come to the conclusion that some people are best left to their own selves.