Listening

Have you ever noticed that people in your life don’t really listen to what you are saying? I mean that they may hear the words but most of the time they are just listening to prepare their response. I am not sure that is listening. The dictionary defines listening as “a station for intercepting electronic communications.” What is hearing? “The faculty of perceiving sounds.” So if someone is listening they are intercepting electronic communications and if they are hearing they are only perceiving sound. That explains a lot to me.

I get really tired of trying to communicate when I know in my heart that someone is not truly listening to what I am saying and the response is “I hear you.” No, were you listening! Usually not. I know that those of us that suffer through the crazy have enough chaos in our brains that when we truly have a point and can truly make sense of the things we need people to understand, we get the I hear you response. I think of the teacher from the “Peanut’s cartoons,” wa, wa, wa, wa! That is what “I hear you,” looks like to me.

I took a course called “Active Listening.” It was for my undergraduate degree because I was thinking about being a therapist. Now I just need one, hahahaha! Anyway, it taught techniques on how to be an active listener. “Active listening is a communication skill that involves going beyond simply hearing the words that another person speaks but also seeking to understand the meaning and intent behind them. It requires being an active participant in the communication process.”

Active participation, holy shit, someone is going to have to want to talk to me. Or truly listen. I am not sure I would know how to act if someone listened to what I was saying and think that I knew what I was talking about or that they would try to understand what it was like to be crazy with no judgement. I just got a chill, that never happens.

If it is not truly apparent I am a sarcastic person. Something I got from my grandmother. She was probably the only one I can remember that listened and asked questions so that she understood what I was telling her or asking her. She never judged me or made me feel that I was alone. She always made me feel wanted and not like a outcast. I know I written a lot about my family and how I feel like I am the misfit. My family swears that is my perception. It is hard to be in the room with people that ignore you or you can feel the tension in the room, it is like I am smothering.

Listening is the topic I have been thinking about for several weeks because again am I not speaking to my mother and my siblings have “Circled the Wagons,” around her. I get the feeling that I have crossed some invisible line. The fact is that my mother is not listening or trying to listen to what I have to say and it has turned into a fight. Or to be politically correct: A Miscommunication!!!” BS, it is that my mother does not want to hear what I have to say and now it is “she is always right and I am always wrong.”

Miscommunication, perception, understanding, I don’t care what it is because all I can see and hear is that no one is willing to listen. Back to my crazy corner and move on. Easier said than done when it comes to losing your family. Still trying to thicken my skin, but really my heart is broken and even worse is that I think I have been seen as crazy for so long it is easier for my family to chalk me off. I might be wrong, but the silence is deafening.

I know those of us that deal with mental health issues or my way of saying it is our “crazy,” have not asked for this to be our lives. We just do it as good as we can. Surviving in a world that looks at us like we are contagious. It does not rub off. Most of us are screaming to be listened to or at the very least someone hear what we are saying!!!

Lunatic Fringe Forever……..