The Drive To Tell One's Story

 

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

Mary Angelou

Note: I caught the typos on this post that I hurried to write before getting back to things...and it was quite amazing...just how many there were.  Will edit some. (I really have to start getting affect and effect right, don't I? Effect is a noun, affect is a verb ( well unless you use the psychiatric term for someone's facial  expression and outward appearance...I think that is why I get screwed up so much...well we'll blame it on that lol) 

The Need to Tell Our story to Others

I write and as someone who writes I have a compulsion to tell story. I hav a compulsion to tell my own story.  I am testament, I suppose, to the fact that truth can sometimes be stranger than fiction. I have quite a story.

The point is whenever I find myself "overwhelmed" or bombarded by the experiences of Life...I have this drive to go and tell someone what  I am experiencing....more specifically to describe the  external circumstances that  have come my way.  I want to relay all the gory details...well the ones I select to enhance the version of story I wish to tell, one where I come off a certain way.  It is more than a coping mechanism for me.  I want others to know just how "bad" it was or is for "me".  

Hmmm!  Somehow when I tell the story...when I get lost in the drama and the details (again selective) I seem to make the suffering more bearable...or at least I am getting some form of external reward for it.  I am hoping to get what is equivalent to an Oscar I suppose , for my little egoic and lost starlet to redeem herself with. 

So last evening...I felt overwhelmed.  Watching someone struggle with a psychotic episode can be overwhelming, especially when there are so many other things going on. Feeling helpless...I found myself collecting story details.  I then expanded the story beyond this circumstance to all the tough experiences I have been a part of lately. 

Then I wanted so desperately to share them with someone...to get some type of reaction, maybe?  An "OMG...I can't believe you ( yes it becomes about "me" not the people I am witnessing) have to go through that.  You are a true victim...a true hero...worthy of praise and adoration." 

The story and drama, ego tells me,  will take me away from fear, vulnerability, inadequacy or at least make it all worth while.

Who I am beyond this bloody ego... let's use 'I' was luckily the part of me that was dealing with the crisis from that quiet, calm and wise space. The whole time it /'I'was also watching my ego react to this intensely stressful situation.  I watched as it felt helpless, frightened, concerned; while it added this circumstance  to a list of a thousand other plot twisters. I watched as it personalized every deal, somehow making it about "me".  I watched as it wrote the story in the head and then looked for a reader or an audience to share it with.  I watched as I sat here for over an hour yesterday  writing all the deatils of 'my' life that would play 'me' as the heroic victim while the situation went on behind me; I watched as I faught the temptation to go visit someone and spill it all out; I watched as I texted people I have not spoken to in a couple of weeks and slipped the fact that "my"  life is in turmoil into a casual conversation somewhat sublimally yet obviously with the main intention as to say, "Man have I got another story to tell." 

No one took the  bite...thank goodness...because the higher part of me...did not want to get lost in story. It just wants peace for all.  It just wanted to stay open, loving, compassionate, calm and peaceful. 

It recognized ego and the pattern...saw what ego  was doing and thankfully Life intervened by not allowing any fish to bite.  So I did not "get to " tell more than a slither of detail to anyone.  I did not publish yesterday's rant.  And I am now considering this need to tell story very carefully.

Is this drive  to tell one's story healthy or unhealthy? Is it release or entrappment? Does it offer spiritual healing or does it just make the ego fester and grow over spirit? What does it give and what does it take away from our waking up experience?

Hmmm! I don't quite know. What do you think? 

All is well.