EPT1.1 Introduction
2.1 Life - What I got
2.2 Stories: Violent Ones
2.3 Stories: Helpful Ones
3.1 What I wish
4.1 Epilogue
Introduction
I was reading the “Your 20 seconds of courage?”-thread, was thinking about my life and realised that I had quite a lot of this courage-situations and a lot more other stuff which might not be so standard. Since it wouldn’t be a pure 20sec-courage post, I decided to post it as a blog and maybe post parts of it in the courage thread.
Things about me, which might be interesting in the following stories:
Gender: Male
Age: 22
Height: 178cm
Weight: I don’t really know, maybe 70kg? I am very athletic, incredible strong for my appearance but not bulky. Think about a (of course not that fit) Bruce Lee and you might have an accurate picture of me (physically, I am not asian).
Siblings: A lot
I’m not a native speaker, so please excuse my grammatical, typographical and colloquially mistakes.
I have a very strong will and mind and also have very strict morals, always judge me harder then others and are strongly against drugs, legal or illegal, which are just for your own pleasure(for example, I don’t mind caffeine, even if I don’t consume it)
I practice(d) various martial arts since I am 6, including Karate(Shotokan), Judo, Wing Tsun, Jeet Kun Do, Krav Maga, Systema and Taekwondo, which is basically the reason for my fitness. I practised this stuff on a practically basis, for fighting and self defence, not as sport, for tournaments or other competitions. Actually I just practice Systema with an instructor, the rest I just practice on my own since I don’t have the time and money for a real training anymore.
My parents divorced when I was 4, mainly because my younger brother felt to the sudden infant death syndrome, was too much for both of them. The divorce caused a long and nasty conflict about the child custody.
My father is a well earning man, who lives about 400km away. I have contact but we are not really close, even if I wish we would. Seeing him just every second weekend and the conflict about child custody did their part on this. I wasn’t really able to make up close contact until recently, but I don’t believe there is a chance to get this broken cup back together. Also one of my earlier memories of him is that he beat my mom, even though it wasn’t really hard, it left its scar in my mind.
My mother is a housewife, even though her family is very good, she didn’t complete a work-education. Late on she became an alcoholic due to life difficulties and the death of her mother and her brother due cancer. I and my 2 (we became more over the time) siblings came to her. She was also sometimes violent against my older sister, my little brother and me (You have to admit that my older sister and my little brother have some very bad character traits, but it was still wrong). I stopped that as soon as I was able to, even though it took a while. I still cant hate her since we didn’t have much money(since she don’t like to ask her parents for help) but we (the child’s) didn’t noticed cause she where giving up everything of her own comfort etc. to grant us a mostly carefree childhood, which my already mentioned siblings still don’t realized.
From now on I will try to sum up some happenings of my life, most of the time I can’t remember correctly in which order it happened and/or my age at the time.
Life - What I got
This is the first thing that I got in my life, and therefore I remember it the most. We moved around a lot, but always where around the same area, so I got lucky that there was still one friend of mine in reach. We where incredible close to each other, he was definitely my best friend since we know each other since we where 6. Problem was, he had a very bad disease. I think it causes his muscles to suffer and/or multiple organ failure. It was genetic, it was clear he would die sooner or later. When I was 12 it was at the time, he was in hospital again and the medics told his parents that it was time. I visited him daily. At the end he was unconscious or in a coma, but I still visited him every day. His parents couldn’t stand it, the longer it goes, the less they visit him, his father tried to suicide at the time, and they loved him very deeply. One day I was able to hear the doc talking to his mother, that he will die within the next 12 hours. His parents couldn’t stand it, they said goodbye to him and left the hospital. Since I was his best friend, I couldn’t stand the thought that he could die alone, so I sneaked into his room, sat down next to him and just hold his hand for I don’t know how long. I knew it would cause mental damage to me, but since I am a very idealistic person, it doesn’t matter for me. After a very long time a nurse or doctor came in, very shocked that I was there. She told that he died a few hours ago, only this moment I realized that I didn’t feel his pulse anymore. This memory haunted me a lot, I would nobody advise to do the same, but for me it was the right thing at this moment. So this should be my first more like 10hours+ of courage. From now on, things will be with no real timeline, more of a collection of stories I have to tell. I will try to give them a little thematic order.
Violent ones:
First: I am not the person who looks for trouble, but I am also not the person who steps back if trouble occurs.
I was walking home from a late school event, it was already dark since it was winter. I came across a dark street when I hear a girl whimpering. Since I can’t let people alone with their sorrow, I followed the noise. What I found were 3 Nazi-like looking guys, kicking a girl on the ground. I ran to them, pushed one away and told them to get off. One of them reacts very quickly by kicking my knee with his steel bar-boot. I felt down and was no longer able to stand on my right leg, later I found out that my kneecap popped out. Since I was lying on the ground and seem not able to stand up, they turn against the girl again. I could have crawled away and let them have their fun, but it would be just wrong. I managed to stand up on my left leg and move towards them. I knocked one out via pressure point-punch, the second one also, since both was showing me their back. The third one was in front of me, he was about to swing his arm when I take a jump to approach him, grab hold on his jacket and start banging my forehead on his head and his nose until he fall down unconscious/not being able to do anymore damage. I robbed to the girl and tried to calm her down. This situation ended nowhere near I expected. I was sure to get my ass kicked, since it was one of my very first violent actions against more than one, I wasn’t confident at all. I just couldn’t stand the fact that they could kick down that poor girl for I don’t know how long, since I didn’t own a mobil phone at that time.
A little different one, I got in a situation one time, where a group of guys was mocking at me, since I don’t step back, I showed them that I don’t fear them. It came to a small fight with one of them in which I kicked his ass. Then the whole group starts approaching me, a big guy was leading it with a knife. Since this happened when I already was very well experienced and trained in hand to hand combat and martial arts, I knew how to knock someone out 100% with one punch. So I managed to block his knifearm and throw a punch to his throat which made him fall down like a sandbag. Then I turned around and was about to run away, but realized that the group does the same, impressed by my knockout. Since I got very good martial arts instructors, I know that throat-hitting someone and leaving them on the ground could kill the person. So I turned around to the knockout guy they left and start to make him sit down and started to massage his neck, since the punch I used messes up the blood circulation, it was crucial to support his blood circulation. The group was still near and watching, they could have easily returned and kicked my ass, but I was just thinking about the guy I just knocked out. When he starts to came to consciousness, I told him to stand up, walk a little and rub his neck, then I run away, since the group starts coming closer again.
I was about to write more of my violent stories, but I don’t really like them, since most of them draw a picture of me, which is just incorrect. It may be looking like I fight ruthless, brutal and unforgiving and this might be true, but the reason is I believe the quicker you end the fight, the better. So I focus on hitting harder, more precise and more destructive than my opponent while still trying not to use dangerous knock out techniques or cause permanent damage, even if it happens a few times, and even if this do not mean I was always right in doing what I did, I t was never illegal, got sued but never convicted. At the end I get some payback for what I’ve done. Both of my forefingers are a little bit deformed due to get broken multiple times. The right knee hurts sometimes, maybe due the kick against my kneecap in the first story, and sometimes major phantom pain in my chest, the story how that happened will be the last violent one for now.
I was walking home from a party, when approaching a group of Nazis. Most of my stories are conflicts which Nazis, cause the village I was living in before I moved to my actual area, there where quite a lot o them… and I showed them that I don’t like them (for what they do. We had a lot of violent Nazis. Even if my country restricts things like Holocaust denial, I don’t mind, since I am for freedom of opinion. As long you don’t hunt foreigner, your thoughts about Hitler are just another [very stupid] opinion). So I was turning around, but the group followed me. They where quite a lot and since I got not enough sleep, I bent off in the wrong street and found myself in a dead end. The group approaches me in a clear aggressive way, most of them where very drunk also. So I started to defend myself which went a lot better then expected, until I missed a punch and hit a wall. Right forefinger broken again, I still fought, but a broken finger makes your fist less stable. Also one of them managed to get behind me and crashed a bottle on my head. I got disoriented for a second and fall down. I was unable to get up again, got surrounded and kicked with heavy boots. I tried to cover my head and just sit it out, ant some point someone shouted that he called the police and the group run away. I got into a hospital with a mild concussion and every rib in my chest was broken, some where broken multiple times. The doctor was very surprised that no organ was harmed, he told me that I got lucky. Even though, the summer holydays I was in a bed in the hospital. My ribs healed up, but you can fell that my breast bone isn’t grown back together correctly, also I had nightmares for a long time, which causes me to suddenly feel the pain like my chest was still broken and being unable to breathe properly. Also, if I fall down on my chest really hard, the pain comes back and I am unable to breathe properly. But this got a lot better over the time.
Helpful ones:
Lets end the violent part and tell some stories that I like a lot more, cause they draw a much better picture of me – they show me a s a person who likes to help, is there if you need it and is very reliable. For some reason, people trust me very easy when it comes down do problems, sorrow, trauma and all the other bad stuff happened to them. Even I am young, I think I heard a lot more bad things, then most of the people in their life. Something just makes me fell when someone needs help with his problems or just someone to talk, and I am normally able to help where others failed, even if I believe that these people help themselves and I am just the tool which let them achieve it. I often got in contact with elder people via browser games which I played. Since communication was mostly text based, they mostly thought I am like 20+, even if I wasn’t, also in circle of acquaintances there where a lot of problems.
I sat down multiple times to talk to friends etc. who wants to commit suicide, I also took care of my elder sister when she was at such a phase. I wanted to give you some stories, but since I am writing this down in one flush, I realize I can’t just because mostly it came down just to talking to them for a long time and it would be impossible to break this done in a short summary. But what I can tell is that I helped countless time in that fashion.
I got contact to a woman via a browser game, who had problems with her husband. She also lost her job, so she was nearly unable to leave him. I chatted a lot with her and at the End I was able to get her a job in a call centre (even this isn’t the best, it was a solution. Also the company was very nice and paid much more then the average) through another guy of that browser game, helped her to move out and get away from her husband, who even istalled spy software on her pc just to control her.
I also made a classmate to talk with me about her getting raped by her first boyfriend, which made her getting into relations with pricks. Now she his happy together with a guy since 1 year, they live together and she starts go to university soon. Even though I hate the guy she’s together with, he seems to be good for her and I am glad she finally managed to get a relationship in which she is happy. We chat sometimes and she said multiple times to me, that without the lots of times I talked with her about her problems, she wouldn’t be able to live her life like she does now. Most of my helpful stories are not really easy to tell, since it was always a long period of time, filled with hour long conversations.
But let’s share the most important one (at least for me) with you, which you could place in the courage-threat.
When I finished junior high and moved on to secondary school to get my A level, I met a girl. He was very reclusive and quiet, we mostly chatted which each other for over a year. We talked a lot about our lives and problems. It was the first time I told someone about my life and the problems I had and the things I’ve done. It wasn’t for me, it was just necessary to help her open herself. She got an elder brother who still lives in the house of her parents. Her father was violent in her childhood, her mother has a alcohol problem, even though she has a high leading position in a shoe-store (not that saves you from alcohol problems, my point is you would think this family is very stable and ideal, as long as you don’t look through the facade). Short story, her father is somewhat right wing extremist, is against homosexuality, had beaten her sometimes, is somewhat choleric. Her brother raped her multiple times with a friend when she was 11 or 12, she never told her parents about that, just I and a girlfriend of her knows. She also had her first relationship with a girl (she had to keep it as a secret from her father). So we talked a lot, we’ve got to know each other very well and I started to fall in love with her. Problem is, she needed me as a friend and listener. She had a very bad relation to all men due to the rape, which you can easily see since we were so close but never had physically contact at that time. I was 17 and she was my first real crush but I had to told me that I can’t approach her. That was my courage moment, when I decided not to tell her my feelings, since it could scare her away and let her fall back into her depressive feelings. I did not do this to keep her in reach, I honestly did it to help her. It was very hard for me since we used to chat a lot, nearly the whole evening till night. It was a major pain for me but still, it helped her a lot, so I decided to block off my feelings.
But life isn’t always bad, it gives a lot too. The quiet and closed up girl I met a year ago where growing like a flower through this year. I wasn’t realizing but she also developed feelings for me, around the same time I did. It was just so unrealistic that I though her signs would be wishful thinking. Then, at the first of June, she told me her feelings. I can’t describe the feeling I’ve got, it was definitely one of the best in my life so far. We talked until 4am of the next day and ended up as a couple. We are now more then 4 years together, live together since 3 and I love her even more than at the first time. This is basically what makes me believe that all the bad stuff I’ve gone through, all the things I regret and I did not want to happen are no threat anymore, since it has lead me to this wonderful women, which I want to keep forever, even 4 years of relationship is not al that long, I am optimistic.
Edit: Since this part is very short, dont take to much out of it. Maybe I will talk about this stuff in a later blogpost in a more detailed fashion
+ Show Spoiler +
But lets get more philosophical from now. I’m just in the mood to tell you a little bit more about me and my believes. You can argue that life did a lot of things to me, you could easily tell that I got a hard life, a bad childhood, a worse history. Logically I should say that’s right, but it isn’t. I am not the guy who makes a big deal out of his problems, I just accepted my life how it was. I am not religious, I do not believe in a greater plan and that all suffer has reason. But I believe that every suffer what can happen to me in my life is just temporarily since I live in a western society, and at the end of the tunnel, there is always a light which make it worth to keep going. Quitting life was never an option for me, it would be so much more easy at multiple points which I will tell you eventually at one point. I wrote in the beginning that I have very strong morals, part of that is at first that I am not the guy who makes it easy for himself. Most of the people choose morals they are comfortable with, I am not. Morals are in my opinion not necessary good for the person who follows them. It’s not about doing the best thing, its about doing the right thing. And in my opinion suicide could be the easiest but never the right way, since everything that didn’t kill you make you stronger as soon as you managed to stand it completely. For example, the story with my dying friend, I knew it would hurt me, but it wouldn’t be right to just let him die alone. When his parents would have stayed maybe I wouldn’t have waited on his bed. But I had to, since it was the right thing. Strong morals and ethics hold you back sometimes, even are able to hurt you, but they make you so much stronger in my opinion and you life so much more worth, since you don’t just take it, you actively try to bring you life in the right direction. It gives you self confidence, it gives you strength. Even though this example might be very weird, but I never masturbated. I don’t judge people doing it, since it is a naturally process and there’s nothing evil, I just don’t do it. I never saw a real reason to do it, nor did I feel the urge, maybe because I just completely shut it out. Always trying to do the right and not the best makes you enjoy your life so much more, since if you did something good and right it is so much better than just doing something that feels good. I just should stop with this cause I tend to act like a prayer which I don’t really like, since I have no right to tell what the wrong and the right way to live. I am just a 22 year old who may be a little bit ahead of his age since he is 12-14 but still lack of life experience. Its just a basic summarize of my life – do what is right, not what is good for you!
Now lets move on:
What I wish
Everyone has wishes about his life. Mine is very simple, If you followed my weird post through this point, you have a very small idea of what a chaotic and never calm road my life was. There where always worries, much suffer, serious problems, major drama. What I wish for my life is just silence – And with that I mean that there is waking up without the fear that someone will just come and crushes down my life again. I just want to stabilize. I already did a lot of steps in this direction, I am not quite there yet, but I believe I come closer to this point. In a few years I will finish university, I will become a teacher, have a steady income, maybe a family with my girlfriend which hopefully is my wife then and I will be able to say “Life always have his trouble, but I survived the worse part. From here on it just goes better”. I’m not that childish to think that there will be no more trouble. But I am sure there will be a point where my world can no longer burn down in the blink of an eye, because as soon as I have this safety, I have my so long wished silence.
Epilogue
Dear person who managed to read to this point, first of all I want to say sorry for the time I stole from you. I am not the person who talks about his problems, just because I think everyone has it own. I will just make their life a little bit worse and it wouldn’t help me. Just sometimes I have the feeling I should tell at least a few of my stories and so I did right now. I don’t want to impress anyone, I don’t want pity, I just feel like I should tell a little bit of me. If you are interested in some more details, feel free to ask, maybe I am willed to tell more. Maybe I will ad a few stories in the future, but at the moment I just don’t feel like it.
Sincerely
Me
Seriously?
