Stand up and speak.

I find myself in all new territory. I am had 44 years of swallowing my opinion and withholding everything I desperately wanted to say. Up until sometime this last year I had a steady reoccuring dream where I would need badly to say something, to warn someone or just to scream for help. I woke up so frustrated every time and there was nothing I could do about the dream. I hoped that therapy/counseling would help but it didn't. Some where in year two of my recovery, I started vocalizing whatever it was I needed to say. My friend was having a horrible breakup and my fear from what i was seeing was , if he didn't snap out of the "Embracing" his deepest pain and begin to let some go. I didn't want to to my friend because I thought maybe I didn't know him well enough or maybe I sounded stupid but I told him my grave concerns and it helped us to be much closer, much much closer.

I don't like to stand up for myself, or others, speaking my mind in any fashion. I was born to absorb all of it and let it out only when I got fucked up.  I've spoke up and been counted many many times in the last few months and it doesn't get any less uncomfortable, but in my head I think if I speak out , i withhold less negativity and that in the end will let me be a happy peaceful Clinton. I also think it causes illness.

I don't want to be a dick head, but if standing up for myself , my friends or telling the ugly truth, , then I would love to be called an opinionated dick head. When I was young and in high school, when I got furious I couldn't speak because it would make me cry and you know when you are crying you can vocalize words. It was a 1-2 punch for me because I didn't like to get angry because then you could see you have broken me and I was afraid to speak because it felt like I would break down and sob. WEAKNESS exposed.

I didn't know it was a thing I could learn to do. I thought you were either a pushover  or a dick head if you did or didn't speak up.

If you don't speak up for yourself and feel like to have a ligature around you throat you much speak of something of great importance to you.l

It is ok if you speak your mind or your heart. You don't have to be a doormat. Freeedom of Speech can be learned if you don't have it.

There is a way out.

I had to tell my friend this morning when he was freaking out at what lay in store for his freedom and I felt I needed to tell him that HE had made those choices that takes away his freedom. It wasn't the mean old police and it wasn't The Devil. It was you thinking you could use drugs, while on probation and it wasn't going to blow up in your face. I said it with love and great compassion but I felt he really needed to be reminded that he alone had set this course in action.