I used to be numb. I used to consider that it was complimentary to hear "Hello"! Now I understand why in writing "Hello"! there is an EXCLAMATION POINT after it. It's because "Hello"! IS an exclamation, a command. (To prove it is obnoxious, listen, if you can bear it, to the "Hello!" that is repeated over and over when computers are "buffering", etc. It is as obnoxious as the repetitious nieghborhood ice cream trucks recording. Instead of MERELY demanding, the "Hello"! is spoken by a woman, specially chosen, perfectly cast, for her nasally provocational TOURETTES-LIKE TONE OF VOICE!

Now I have regained FEELING,(having recooperated, by a voluntarily induced sleeping "coma"). I have some beginnings of emotional strength. I only have RELATIVE instead of ABSOLUTE struggles now with PTSD startle effects. I am VERY FOCUSSED on the present. I have little, if any, need or want for any distractions other than what are the very basic physical needs for essential as opposed to enhanced survival.

However, or perhaps as a RESULT of being almost absolutely present focussed, I FEEL others' (especially children being bullied by parents that appear to be "disciplining" children "for their own good")social torture and provocation vicariously all around me.

I am just beginning to have the skills to protect myself from all social, cultural provocations. And I need to focus on getting stronger myself, and possibly my attempts, at even writing about this are premature, but because of my age (I'm 64) I want to try to share my experiences, in the hope that just seeing this in writing may help me to better reflect and if my experiences help others, then that is "gravy", etc.

I use my common sense, EQ skills whenever, wherever I can, but I depend upon my instinct to help me to react when, and/or if, there is/are any life or death matters. I finally know the difference between essentials and quality of life( i.e., ego and drama) details. I see fighting only as a really distant last choice, fleeing being my preferred MO unless "cornered, etc. Since my skills are just beginning to emerge, I usually only take "baby steps" (appropriate because I am, after all a baby boomer, a LATE BLOOMER BABY BOOMER, at that lol) to venture out into what, to me, seems to be a toxic, socially provoking world.

I take the risk of venturing out to do comedy because, at least among some comedians,(there are, thankfully, still some outliers, some alternative stand-up and/or improv comedians, who prefer being spontaneous risk takers, instead of selling out commercially. These are the ones who dare to still think, and some who even risk entertaining themselves, primarily with "stream of consciousness stories, hoping audiences risk being spontaneous along with them rather than settling for safe commercial "hack" comedy.

I am grateful that there are still some who dare to be audience members who risk collateral damage from even watching, hearing alternative comedians, those who do Improv, due to its' subliminal effects, kind of like reading this article. Maybe this article and some alternative comedy and improv needs a warning label? Fans of such disruptive communication may even risk repercussions of being supportive, by being labelled by their more conservative family members , friends of aquaintainces as underminers of the status quo!

I am so grateful to be able to find and cherish these few outliers, these brave people who refuse to "go with the sheeple program". Even WITH others for support, it is still almost unbearable living today without relying on drugs or alcohol, etc. For instance, I am often close to DECOMPENSATING when someone, anyone intrudes upon and forces me to HEAR their commercial, i.e., unwanted "Hello"! or worse, their demanding "How are you?" and but for my skills in reflexive language I might indeed decompensate. However, I am training myself to instantly "repay" anyone who intrudes on me with an UNWANTED "How are you?" with my personal antidote/response of :"I hate questions"! I even answer my phone with "Make me laugh, or I'm hanging up!"

IMHO, "Hello!" is a cultural intrusion, a command, a demand for you to acknowlege that someone needs your attention to prove they exist, because they are unsure if sure they do exist.

Previously, when I was missing self validity, self esteem (and eyebrows, as well-but thats a different story) I substituted drugs, liquor, sex, sports, and/or alternate distractions for FEELINGS, EMOTIONS! You will be hard pressed (and if you, dear reader, ARE numb you may be so hard pressed that you are flattened, as flat probably, as your affect! ha ha! lol) to even know that I am talking about YOU!

I used to allow myself to be put on the defensive when I was asked "How ARE you?" Though I felt the torture of the COMMAND to BE defensive, I ANSWERED, I was numb, or politically correct, (same thing)! It was as if I was being asked to IDENTITFY myself with my name, rank, and serial number! I responded robotically, I had internalized that my name,my MEANING, my very identity WAS to endure social torture!

Social torture, (The Social Contract) is, after all, what MOST of us settle for as being relatedness, connectedness, raison d'etre, etc. We ARE, after all, guilty of the original sin of daring to come into this world naked! And we thought we PAID for that impropriety by being spanked into existence? Oh no! We MUST be tortured continuously, from that first instant of violence and social submission training!

When we are first taken home in the correct swaddling colors (blue for male torture, and pink for female torture) we are subjected to more appropriatly tailored, "cutting edge" lol culturally ordained rites and rituals of torture. Instead of being given our birth right of omnipotent dark side/light side- all around the town/world freedom,most blue torture subjects are neatly "tailored":circumcized, and all pink torure subjects are "cut-i-fied" to, at least, brain "death", with baby talk!

When we're sufficiently mummified by around 4 or 5 years of age ( even sooner now, with infant, etc., day care torture) we have our torture training enhanced by "in loco parentis" agents. By this time if our older siblings have yet to introduce you to tortorous projection bullying, we will certainly be caught up directly by our cohorts bullying us.

Then, when we graduate from primary and secondary school torture, we are ready (with a brief hiatus/regression to back to "in loco parentis" torture if we attend college or a university) for work/statism torture! (Well, corporation/state bureaucracy, is the same thing after all. lol)

Welcome to the torture of customs, tradition, now in high gear, with the pressure to succumb, numbly, to relationship torture: dating, marriage, and VOILA Parenthood! Start the social,cultural torture process all over again, with becoming torturer-in-chief to our children!

What worked for me as an antidote may work for you, too, if, of course you want OUT of the social contract, your choice! (If you can tell me why I SHOULD WANT to be a part of, instead of APART FROM, the social contract, I am all ears!)What helped me was a virtual "re-do" of all the social, cultural, familial, etc., torture, by undoing my "torture victim" status through comedic use of reflexive language.

For instance I re-imagined me listening tomy mother telling me "I wish I never had you"! I virtually tell her (in a kind of empty chair scenario) "Well, Mom, what DID you wish you had"? Then I continue with "Perhaps you wished for a MONEY TREE instead of me to come out when the Doctor reached into your cesarian-scar-produced-opening-in-your-stomach-that-you-showed-me-so-often-to-make-me-feel-guilty-that-I-was-ever-born"!

When I stopped taking my victim status to heart, when I began slowly to feel lovable to myself, I gained, for the first time, my sense of humor or perhaps I found my lost sense of humor. I regained my limitlessness, my original infant omnipotence spirit, my property rights to what is the only property that I, IMHO, can ever really rightly own, and that is "ownership" of the complete RANGE (from my "dark side" to my "light side") of my potential.

In order to "own" my self, my entire self, I HAVE to BE all my "sides"! (Hopefully that includes only my non violent "dark side", my, what others may consider my obnoxious verbal dark side!If need be, though I love myself enough and will and can fight ferociously, if need be, to stay alive.

There, in my "dark side", my dark humor was awakened and now my dark side humor always keeps me company (when, that is, my dark and light sides are cooperating instead of competing, lol) Instead of ever feeling alone, ALL my "sides" are always there, even in my dreams, to always keep me company!