on losing your dignity
So at the risk of geeking myself up, I recently became a huge fan of Battlestar Galactica (okay - I was a fan of the old show too).
Last episode, Colonel Tigh (the resident SOB) comes out with an spot on speech about the worst aspect of being 'played' - that being the loss of your dignity.
And I quote, (well, paraphrase): "The worst part of being played is losing your dignity. You wind up feeling too worthless to continue to suck in the oxygen that you're breathing. In time you start to love it [feeling worthless] - it's like a bottle that never runs dry."
This Cancer Survival has been a losing battle against regaining my dignity or any amount of social station in life that might not leave me feeling completely worthless most of the time. It often does feel similar to the force that addiction has over the psyche. I don't believe that it is an addiction though. "I'm worthless" is just what you have to tell yourself in order not to completely crack up in the face of being treated as though you're dispensable by your own famiy. I can more easily do something about my being worthless than I can about the rest of the world being self-centered assholes - at least that's what you keep telling yourself.
It's an illusion of course. There's nothing to be done about either. And I'm not actually worthless, BTW.
What there is to do, is pretend that you're not broken as best you can. And bit by bit, you try to make sense of the crushing sense of hatred and rejection that you now have had the experience of sitting in. Try to keep it at bay as best you can - but that's an illusion too.
Fuck.
Last episode, Colonel Tigh (the resident SOB) comes out with an spot on speech about the worst aspect of being 'played' - that being the loss of your dignity.
And I quote, (well, paraphrase): "The worst part of being played is losing your dignity. You wind up feeling too worthless to continue to suck in the oxygen that you're breathing. In time you start to love it [feeling worthless] - it's like a bottle that never runs dry."
This Cancer Survival has been a losing battle against regaining my dignity or any amount of social station in life that might not leave me feeling completely worthless most of the time. It often does feel similar to the force that addiction has over the psyche. I don't believe that it is an addiction though. "I'm worthless" is just what you have to tell yourself in order not to completely crack up in the face of being treated as though you're dispensable by your own famiy. I can more easily do something about my being worthless than I can about the rest of the world being self-centered assholes - at least that's what you keep telling yourself.
It's an illusion of course. There's nothing to be done about either. And I'm not actually worthless, BTW.
What there is to do, is pretend that you're not broken as best you can. And bit by bit, you try to make sense of the crushing sense of hatred and rejection that you now have had the experience of sitting in. Try to keep it at bay as best you can - but that's an illusion too.
Fuck.
posted by nancy at 9:08 AM
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