Dear Papa Bear,
Although I myself am not a furry, several people I know, including my husband are. I've asked around and a good friend of mine pointed me your direction, and I thought, seeing as it's related to furries and what I understand is fairly typical furry behaviour, why not ask a seemingly supportive and helpful furry for a little advice? Anyway, I'm not entirely sure how to go about this,so please bear with me, and forgive me in advance for talking your ear off. I'll start from the beginning. A few years ago, I was in a major accident and was hospitalized for several months. My husband, at the time just my childhood best friend, discovered the fandom shortly before that, and turned to the community for support. Now, I am eternally grateful to the community for the support it showed him, because he suffers from severe depression and has often acted out on suicidal tendencies, and the community acted as a safety net of sorts that distracted him and helped him deal with what he was going through at the time. He's a real piece of work with a shitload of issues, but his heart's in the right place and I'll be damned before any one of his problems makes me love him less. But he's not who I'm here about. Well, partially. I'll explain. During the time I was down and out, he made several friends in the fandom. One of them at the time was an 11 year old kid. From what I can tell, they became friends while discussing his family life and his family troubles as well as my husband's family issues and childhood. Both of them have fairly terrible biological parents and often talked about that. He often stated that he felt his parents were mentally abusing him by denying him unrestricted access to the internet, and in particular, the more adult side of Furaffinity, and my husband would dredge up memories of various things his parents did and said to him as a child. from that a sort of brotherly bond developed. After that, a bit of turmoil in the kid's family lead to him moving and my husband losing contact with him for several years. My husband and I grew increasingly busy with work and he sort of moved on from the fandom. About a year ago, they made contact again, the kid, then 16, nearing 17, was finally given an opportunity to return to the fandom and dove in headfirst. He started contacting my husband and I again and we were glad to be talking to him again after so many years. Conversations were a little awkward and far apart at first, as to be expected, seeing as it'd been 5 or so years since we last talked and we weren't sure what to say, or what not to say. After a few months, my husband asked me, awkward and unsure how to say it, if I'd agree to be the kid's pet with him. Now, I'm fairly ignorant when it comes to a lot of things online. I wasn't really sure what it meant, and the kid did a right fine job of confusing me even more. From what I understood, it was similar to the whole furry family thing my husband tried to explain to me years ago. He tried to explain that, seeing as the kid was his furry brother, after our marriage, that made me his furry brother too, and the whole concept was a little above my head to be honest. So I assumed it was pretty much the exact same thing. My husband also understood it the same way I did, and he said that seeing as the kid had supposedly been through a lot in the years we didn't have contact, it'd be nice to go along with it. So, I agreed. Now that's were things began to take a dip. The first time I spoke to him after that, he said he wanted to yiff me, and I honestly had absolutely no idea what it meant. After a bit of explaining from my husband, I realised what he meant, and was told that it's a fairly common thing to do between furry brothers/masters and pets. Now, first of all, I was not very comfortable with the thought of role-play of that nature, seeing as I am in a relationship, secondly, he is underage, and I'm not comfortable with that. My husband is the kind of person who gets extremely flustered and abashed if you so much as mention a penis near him, so I wasn't used to someone being so open about things of that nature either. Neither my husband nor I were really very comfortable with it, because we've got each other, and we don't really want sexual relations with other people, and he is underage, but we sort of shrugged and told ourselves that he's half a world away, and it doesn't mean anything, so it was ok and we went along with it for his sake. After a while, it seemed that it was all he was interested in, because within 5 minutes of greeting him, he comments on how horny he is, or how great our asses look and feel and how he can't wait to have his way with it and things to that effect. So after a while it became very awkward and uncomfortable for us to talk to him, but hey, we were teenagers, so we looked past it because it was probably just hormones. After a while I realised he didn't really care about much else from us anymore. I travel a lot for work, and on one particular business trip, I was stuck in meetings from dusk till dawn because of various onsite issues that needed to be solved. During this time, my husband went through a bout of severe depression I was not aware of at the time, and he tried to talk about it with the kid, but the kid disregarded what he was saying and tried to start yet another sexual role play session. I was extremely upset with him for that, because my husband reached out to him and he ignored it completely. That was the first major strike for me. He eventually introduced first my husband, then my to his latest characters. Two males who were obviously based of my husband and I. Both were dumbed down, over-sexualized and stereotyped versions of us. My husband didn't mind that, but I felt it was more than a little weird to have what was essentially a perpetually horny, bimbo-fied version of myself running around. He regularly told my husband all the sexual escapades between these characters and his own fursona, which was weird, and extremely uncomfortable for my husband to hear, seeing as he was essentially being told how oversexed me is sleeping around with anything and everything that moves, and on an almost daily basis. What bothers me most is that he has recently taken to referring to us as these characters. It feels like he wants us to become the characters he's created. Almost as if he doesn't care about what happens as long as we just drop out pants when he commands. I don't know... What do you think? Do you think I am overthinking things and just being to hard on him? I feel like I shouldn't let this get to me at all, but it does, and any attempts to say anything are swiftly ignored and replaced with an attempt to begin another role play session, so I feel like at this point trying to reason is pointless. Nicolas (age 32) * * * Hi, Nicolas, Thanks for your letter. On behalf of the furry community, I apologize for this experience. Furries like this kid give us a bad name and make it sound as if furries are all about sex. We're not. This kid has definite issues regarding sex--that is, a sexual addiction. Some of it might be attributed to youth, but if sex is all he thinks about, then that's a definite problem. Secondly, your feelings of discomfort are completely valid. Do not apologize for them. It sounds like you feel obligated in some way to do what this kid wants because of your husband. You are not obligated. Friendship and family are two-way streets and should be built upon respect. This guy clearly doesn't respect you and your husband, which was made clear when your husband wanted to talk about some serious issues and all the kid wanted to do is yiff. My advice: explain to him clearly and in no uncertain terms that you really are not interested in sexual role play, that you are happily married and monogamous, and that his sexual overtures make you uncomfortable. Also, make it clear that you don't really appreciate having a hypersexual character based on you. By not explaining this, you are actually passively encouraging him to continue what he's doing. Have this discussion with your husband, too, and make sure you're both on the same page. It sounds like he, too, feels somehow obligated to this yiffy fur out of some sense of gratitude for his earlier friendship. But, as I said before, friendships should be based on mutual respect, and if this fellow can't respect you then it is not a friendship worth having. Yes, there is a faction of the furry community that seems to think yiffing is somehow obligatory. That makes me sad. While I myself am sexually liberated and feel that many people are too sexually repressed (especially in America), you CAN go too far in the opposite direction to the point of being ridiculous and even unhealthy. This is the case of this fur. He could actually use some help from a counselor, but that's not your responsibility. See if you can get him down to a friendship level that is platonic. And let me know how it goes. Hugs, Papabear
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Dear Papa Bear,
After spending the last few days reading you advice to others, I've decided to try this. For quite a number of years now, people tend to think I'm being rude/angry, especially when I'm trying my hardest NOT to be. I worked at Walmart for a while a few years ago and had had customers who specifically looked for me for help, and thought I'd fixed it, but I recently learned there had been numerous complaints against me. I didn't think much of it (I had been sick at the time, and had many days where I couldn't even speak), but at my current job, all of my coworkers have said I have a bad attitude. They also tend to make me the butt of the joke, so whatever. However, a few customers have said things like "you don't need to be rude" and "why are you angry", and many more are just nasty and snotty to me and I can only guess they think I'm doing it to them. Even my roommates and my boyfriend can't always tell when I'm not being rude. I have no idea how to fix this. I'm already doing everything I though was polite! I smile, ask "how can I help you", apologize a lot, be quick to assemble the order, say "have a nice day", etc. It's very frustrating. How can I not be rude, when in my head, I'm already the most polite I can be? Anonymous (age 21, female) * * * Dear Furiend, There are several ways that people might misread you other than by what you say or do. It might be the tone of your voice, your body language, your facial expressions, or even the way you dress. For example, if you, say, have eyebrows that naturally slant downward or the corners of your mouth slant downwards, even slightly, when your face is relaxed, you might be perceived as being angry or scowling. A heavy brow or forehead that is too pronounced may also be seen as having a harsher appearance. If you stand with your arms crossed or tap your foot nervously, this could signal you’re impatient. Sometimes, believe it or not, women who dress very nicely and professionally in the workplace (or, say, put their hair up in a tight bun rather than letting it hang loosely) can come off to some people as being “bitchy” (I know, unfair, right?) If you speak with a monotone voice (or, as when you were sick, your voice sounds a bit gravely), you could sound indifferent or mad, too. What you need to do is take some time to be more aware of how you look. At home, spend time examining yourself in the mirror. This article shows how even subtle changes in how your face looks can send positive or negative signals http://www.today.com/health/do-you-have-happy-or-angry-resting-face-it-may-1D80234661. As an exercise, try emulating the more positive features; be conscious of what your mouth looks like (upward- vs downward-turned corners), how you stand, and so forth. You can also try dressing in cheerful, even silly clothing. As an extreme example, if you wore a T-shirt with a big yellow happy face on it, people would be less inclined to think you were an angry person. Or wearing a floral pattern vs. a sharply geometric one. Warm colors (red, orange, yellow, pink) come off as being more uplifting that drabs (brown, grey, khaki) or cool colors (blue, purple). Makeup that brightens the face may also help (http://makeup.allwomenstalk.com/makeup-tips-to-brighten-your-face). Culturally, Americans are rather an anomaly in that we expect people to be chipper, smile a lot, be happy. This is very different from countries from Japan to Europe to the Middle East, where overly happy people (people who are upbeat and smile for no apparent reason) are often looked at as either being insincere or possibly crazy. You live in a crazy place (and the South is especially noted for people often being exceedingly nice and hospitable [Northerners are seen as a bit more cold and deliberate, often]), so this is even more true in a place like Texas than, say, Minnesota or New Hampshire. This all might seem rather shallow because, well, it is, but it might actually help you reverse the incorrect opinion people have of you. Good luck! Papabear Dear Papa Bear,
Um, well, I guess I'll open with my question how do you make friends in this community? As in the furry community. I've been on FurAffinity for a while now, but I'm still at a loss on what to do. I have no idea how to approach people online, get to know them, and all that stuff I have met a few people, but that’s because they approached talked to me first, and when I talk to them, I feel like I'm boring them. Mainly because I can't seem to get a good conversation going. I can do it in real life but that's because I feel like I can get to know the person easier. And that says a lot because I'm a very shy person and I have a hard time approaching people in real life as it is. Even when I try to get a conversation going the other person doesn't seem to try and keep it going. they always seem like they're half there. They're a good person and considerate, but I just feel like a burden. I feel like I'm just the one asking the questions, trying to get to know them, even though I don't know what to ask, and they don't really ask me much. When I tell them that I feel like I'm doing all the talking they tell me I'm wrong and I shouldn't worry. I'm at a complete loss as to what to do. As for meeting furries in real life through my local group, I'm scared to do so. The FA page they have isn't very active and what I've seen of the people there, they all seem to be 19 and up already. No one really around my age. Furcons are out of the question because I don't have anyone who I would feel comfortable asking to take me. I have no clue what I should do anymore. I feel like I'm just screwing everything up. For a fandom that's supposed to be so friendly and inviting, I feel so alone, like an outsider. Not just here but everywhere. I'm sick and tired of feeling alone. I just wanna feel like I belong to something. I hope this wasn't too all over the place Thank you for your time. Thomas (age 16) * * * Greetings Fellow Southern Californian :-3 Yours is a pretty common problem; many furries are very shy people. One reason they become furries, I believe, is because they have a hard time with mundanes and can relate a bit better to the furry community. Of course, being shy makes it more difficult to find friends, so here’s what you do. The first part of your letter is about having trouble initiating and maintaining a conversation. The trouble here is that you are trying to have a dialogue spontaneously generate out of the ether of the Internet. Some people are actually good at this, but when that doesn’t work for you, what you need to do is start a joint activity. Gaming is one popular way to do this. When you get involved in a multiplayer game, for example, teaming up with people to fight a digitized foe, you will actually have to talk to them about the game, strategy, etc. This becomes your seed of conversation because you have something in common to talk about, especially after playing a few games together. Another strategy is to join an online forum about a topic that interests you. While the conversation isn’t in real time, often you will come across people whose comments you find interesting, and then you might contact them in an IM and strike up a further conversation. I actually met one of my dearest, best friends online while talking about the bear community and about coming out gay in midlife. This lead to private online conversations, then phone calls, and finally to in-person meetings. And, I agree, in-person interactions are best. But if you’re shy and afraid...? Shyness is a learned habit. It’s what happens when, for some reason, we become insecure about ourselves and try to hide from interactions in order not to get hurt. One reason this can happen to us is when, as a child, our family moves to another neighborhood and we have to go to a new school. The friends and social structures that were once familiar to us in our early childhood (when people tend to be fearless) are gone and suddenly we are unsure how to start over. That lack of confidence makes it more likely we will be socially awkward and make a mistake that can be embarrassing. Then, to avoid that happening again, we retreat into ourselves and a pattern emerges. Other types of life changes can lead to this pattern, too, such as an illness, disability, or death in the family. For instance, people with a stuttering problem can be very shy; even people with, say, a severe acne problem or who are not good at sports. Sometimes, people who lose their parents or whose parents divorce become very unshy because their lives have been turned upside down. That sort of thing. An internal voice begins to emerge where we start to put ourselves down in our minds: “I’m stupid,” “I’m not attractive,” “I’m awkward,” “I’m boring,” etc. etc. What you must do is break this negative-reinforcement pattern. You have to learn to love yourself. Here is a wonderful article from my favorite spiritual site about that: http://tinybuddha.com/blog/21-tips-to-release-self-neglect-and-love-yourself-in-action/. Learning to love yourself isn’t easy. I’m still working on that myself :-P Sometimes the progress can be slow, but keep at it. Remember, you have to meet people halfway and not expect them to do all the work. To imply that the fandom is not as friendly because you have a problem approaching people to make friends really isn’t fair, is it? I mean, turn the situation around. If you were at a furmeet and someone was hiding in a corner not talking to others, wouldn’t you have a hard time making friends with that person? You would probably assume he or she wanted to be left alone. In another scenario, someone approaching you who is an extremely awkward conversationalist tends to make one uncomfortable. (Actually, another strategy, if you are up for it, is to deliberately approach furries you see are shy and awkward and try to make them feel more welcome). That said, some words of advice on interacting with people at a party or other social function. 1) Smile; 2) Be aware of your body language (http://www.study-body-language.com/Positive-body-language.html); 3) Don’t think you have to do all the talking; being a good listener is very appealing to other people; 4) Related to #3, listen carefully to what others say and then, without interrupting them, react and ask them questions; this is a great way to initiate conversations; don’t worry about talking about yourself, especially when you are first meeting someone; if they ask you, then answer, but otherwise lean in and show interest in their stories. Finally, don’t worry about being an “outsider.” Until very recently, I tried like the devil to be “part of a group,” but I’ve been unsuccessful, even with furries and local bears. But I have been quite successful with being friends with others on an individual basis, and that is actually better than being part of a group or clique. Slowly, over the years, I have built up a surrogate family of furries and bears whom I would not trade for the world. Hope this helps! Stay Furry! Papabear Dear Papabear,
A while back, about 2013, I started to really get into a YouTuber, and his name is Markiplier. My ma and I are going to Comic-Con 2016, and the true reason that I only want to go there is because of my senp... I mean, because of Mark. I can't shut the heck up about it and my ma is really annoyed. I'm also really hyping up this event even though I know I shouldn't and I'm gonna be disappointed when everything isn't gonna plan out in my head. So how do I stop myself from hyping up this event? And how do I stop thinking that Mark and I could be together? With lots of love, Pandaco (age 13, Colorado) * * * Hi, Pandaco, It used to be that this sort of fan crush only happened with young people and rock musicians (e.g., the throngs of young girls chasing after The Beatles, but you’re too young to recall that). Anyway, it’s interesting that these days people with popular blogs and YouTube channels are getting large fan bases. For the benefit of any of my readers seeing this letter who don’t know, Markiplier is the pseudonym for Mark Fischbach, a 26-year-old videogame commentator based in Los Angeles (https://www.youtube.com/user/markiplierGAME/), who is evidently becoming quite popular. So, Pandaco, what you have here is a crush on a media personality. He’s twice your age and—let’s be realistic—the two of you are not likely to become boy- and girlfriend. You need to calm down and get a little perspective here. How to gain perspective:
It’s fine to be a fan and like someone, even cheer them on, write them fan mail, and wish them well. Go ahead and go see him at Comic-Con, get his autograph, say “Hi! I enjoy your work!” and leave it at that. Your getting all hyped up about an interesting guy who is becoming a bit famous is perfectly natural. As long as you stay real about it, you’ll be fine. Oh, and spare your mom from talking about him. Talk about it with your friends to get it out of your system. Hugs, Papabear The past three weeks have been really trying for me. Someone or a group of people stole stuff from my family. Just recently I found out they have attempted to use financial stuff to go against me and I have put out a police report and the financial institution is doing their own investigation. I may have matured a lot since I was younger but it still burns my stomach to heck these persons have attempted to do this to me.
The stuff they stole had sentimental value to me. Some other stuff, it's just stuff, material things which can be easily replaced. It feels like things have been a very steep slope which I am attempting to stop the downward slide. I still think about it and it's very raw. I am OK and things will hopefully turn out OK, which I think usually does. I'm not really a religious person but I think of one song which states for any payoff for having any faith is to be tested again and again. I really want to feel safe, know my future is OK and just want to feel what I quantify as normal. Any suggestions to help feel a normalcy in my life is appreciated. Charon (age 38) * * * Hi, Charon, Could you give me some more information? Who are these "group of people"? Do you have a good idea who they are? What do you mean they attempted to use financial stuff to "go against me"? How did they steal stuff from you? Did they break into your house? I need more information, please, before I can reply. Thanks, Papabear * * * Random person or persons wanting to steal stuff for their own monetary gain and not giving a hoot about the other person, namely me. I don't know the people. Stole bank information, which thankfully the bank I go to caught it in time and no money was withdrawn. Storage facility. * * * Hi, again, Charon, So the bank situation has been taken care of, but you have lost the items from the storage unit. Sorry to hear that. It is, frankly, rare for someone to live out one’s life and not be a victim of theft at least once. When I was living in Ferndale, Michigan, a kid broke into my home and took jewelry, my bicycle, and broke into my great grandmother’s cedar hope chest. The irony of the break-in was twofold: first, the chest wasn’t locked and all that was in it was afghans; and second, they stole worthless jewelry while leaving the more expensive stuff behind (kid didn't know what he was doing, obviously, leaving a diamond ring and taking a high school class ring instead, for example). I didn’t care about the jewelry or the bike, but it cost me $300 to fix and restore the hope chest, which pissed me off royally because it was so senseless and because that was the one piece of furniture in my home that had sentimental value at the time. The police were no help at all, even though one of them told me that “we know a kid in the neighborhood who has been breaking into homes.” Never did a thing. I later went to the police station to file an addendum to the missing items and the cop in charge of the case vaguely looked at it while chatting with his buddies about his summer vacation plans. Useless. But I digress. I have some words of advice regarding storage units (I’m full of advice, ain’t I?) First of all, if you have a lot of valuables in a storage unit, you should purchase insurance for it. Secondly, items of great value should go in a safe deposit box or a home safe (make sure the home safe is fire resistant). If they are too large for either, I would just keep them at home and, perhaps, purchase a home alarm system. As with any theft, there is a sense of personal violation that follows. The idea, for me, that someone was in my home going through my things makes me feel very creeped out. I understand that you would feel the same. Unfortunately, there is no way for anyone to be 100% safe. You can take precautions, lower the risk of it happening again, but it could still happen. And as for things like banks or even retail stores, if you watch the news, hackers are constantly compromising the databases full of personal information for millions of people. When it comes to banks, your money is insured by the FDIC, so even if it’s stolen you should be able to get it back. And with credit cards, if people steal your card and start making purchases, you are not liable for them (sometimes you can owe up to $50, but that’s usually the max and I believe that is only if you are shown to have been negligent). Not that I’m a huge fan of credit card companies, but mine has been very good at informing me immediately if they see a suspicious purchase, such as the time they noticed “I” bought a plane ticket to Idaho. They have a full history of my purchasing behavior, and since that was unusual, they contacted me right away. They did so, too, when they noticed a purchase worth hundreds of dollars for online video games, and they knew that was unlike anything I had bought before. You have a very good attitude about merchandise without sentimental value being just “stuff.” That’s exactly what it is. Just stuff, and I’m glad that part doesn’t upset you so much. Just be more cautious about things with sentimental value, is what I would advise for you. However, in the end, even those items are really just stuff, too. As the Buddhists say, it is our attachment to things that causes us pain. Where there is no emotional attachment to things, no harm can come to you should something happen to them. It reminds me of a story about the late Jim Henson (the Muppets creator). One day, he was returning to his car in a parking garage and noticed the trunk had been broken into and some very pricey camera equipment had been stolen. His reaction? “I guess someone needed it more than I did.” You can’t control other people’s actions, but you can control your response to them. Blessed Be, Papabear (Warning: the following letter describes a very disturbing suicide; if you are a very sensitive person, please do not read this one)
Dear Papa Bear I only recently learnt about you, and from what I can tell, it'd have been very helpful to know a lot sooner. But, I suppose you play the hand you're dealt, make the best of it and all that. I apologise in advance for taking up you time and there's a couple things some people could find triggering in here, so be warned. For me, everything started about six years ago. I had just got into high school and made friends with a couple guys who were in university. You know, make friends with older, university guys who are all into the same geeky things as you, because your parent decides to send you to a sport focused high school where you get bullied for liking geeky things. Or, that's what I thought at the time anyway. They were really nice guys and we became very good friends over the next three years. There were 2 guys in particular I grew very attached to. Like a father-son/brother kind of relationship. Riaan and Danie. We were almost always together. Either I was with them after school and in the evenings, or I sat in Skype calls and chat rooms with them. Inseparable, you could say. Riaan always said it was like having a younger brother, and he liked that. Partially because he didn't have much of a family. His mother and father hated him, his siblings were continuously told he is the worst of the worst, he didn't really have a pleasant upbringing. Add in the fact that he was severely depressed and often suicidal, cripplingly self doubting and loathing, and had severe anxiety and you have a recipe for disaster. Danie had an abusive father who slept with everything that he couldn't drink, smoke or snort. His mother ended up grabbing him and his brother and leaving. Socially awkward, shy, and nervous, sort of your typical nerd. And then there's me. Father cheated on mother, ran of with his mistress to Tanzania and disappeared. Single mother left trying to raise two kids with the father only caring enough to help when convenient for him. Socially inept, awkward, nervous, permanently stressed out and mildly depressed even at the best of times. Some of our other friends used to joke that we were pretty much just one constant self help seminar. Gave us three a nickname I can't remember. But it was ok. We were happy with the way things were, and we wanted to keep things that way. Everything was fine up to that point... About 3 years ago, I was in my second last year of school, I ran over to go visit Riaan at his little student flatlet. Thought we could finally marathon the resident evil movies, like we'd been saying we should. Funny that I have a really bad memory because of a head injury I got when I was 3, but I can still clearly remember everything about that night, right down to what magazines and games he had laying on his desk. Anyway, walked in, everything was dark, thought a bulb blew or something. I walked in on him sitting in his shower, hunched over. He had gone and taken his father's shotgun, the same one his father took on hunting trips to the Karoo to hunt springbok. I yelled, but nothing, just a loud, sharp ringing in my ears followed by a shower of red. You'd be surprised how loud it actually is.... I can't really remember what he looked like, but I can still clearly remember the grotesque rose on the wall, where every chunk of brain, bone and blood landed. How he sat before, where he fell after. It's this permanent horror still burnt into my eyelids, always there the minute I close them. No notes, no reasons, nothing. His parents arranged a “private funeral” and dumped what was left in an unmarked grave so it could be forgotten. That's when things fell apart. I stopped caring. Danie stopped caring. We gave up. Eventually we forced ourselves and each other to move on. We bottled everything up, pretending we were ok. It worked, for the most part. They all finished their courses, got jobs, I finished school and went off to college. Life went on. Couple of months ago we found out Danie pretty much destroyed his liver. He was down and out for a while, barely alive and dropped off the waiting list unless he stays sober for at least one year. Now I've got this constant feeling of dread hanging over me. I can't focus on anything or get myself to care enough, either. I think I've already given up without even thinking of trying to put up a fight and that's what scares me most. I just don't know what to do anymore. I'm sorry about babbling on and taking up your time. I feel like a complete asshole dumping all of this on someone else and asking them to help, but at this point I've written this about a dozen times and chickened out at the last minute. So, I thought, what the hell, if you sit quietly in a corner, nothing will change. But I thank you for your time, and I'm sorry for taking up so much of it. Sincerely, Jean (age 20, South Africa) * * * Dear Jean, That took real courage to write your story to me. I can’t imagine anything as horrible as what you went through when you witnessed your friend’s violent suicide. Please do not apologize or in any way think you are taking up my time. This is what I’m here for, although I have to admit this one may be out of my league. As you know, I am not a licensed psychotherapist. It might be clichéd, but have you sought one out? In part of your letter, you say that you and Danie moved on, but I don’t believe you have. Danie is killing himself with alcohol and you are deeply, deeply scarred. What Riaan’s parents did to the body is an insult to his memory. I understand what they did, but I won’t condone it. All three of you are victims of a society that doesn’t accept those who are different. For a while, you found a solution by creating your own support group, but Riaan, sadly, fell apart and shattered that circle. Normally, when someone goes through a tragic loss such as this, I tell them to seek out support, perhaps go to grief counseling or a local support group of people who have lived through the same thing. In your case, however, I worry that this would just remind you of the trio you already once had, and that would just bring back sad memories. Nevertheless, educating yourself about the grieving process, which is unique when it comes to suicide, may help. Here is a website that has useful information. If you are religious, you might also seek out help from your local church or temple. But there are several other things I would like to suggest you do, too. First, make sure you are not blaming yourself for any of this. Riaan’s suicide is not not not not your fault. I’m not sure you’re feeling that way, but if you are you have to get that notion out of your mind. Second, if you are feeling powerless, empower yourself by being there for Danie. This will help both of you. Danie internalized his grief, and the result is that his grief manifested itself in alcoholism. You’re also internalizing your grief and damaging yourself in a different way. Have you allowed yourself to cry? Grieving is a catharsis that you must go through before you can continue with your life. You might also be angry at Riaan for what he did. That’s okay, too. Let it out. Yell, scream, shout out your anger. It doesn’t make you a bad person to be angry, and, once you let out that anger, you will feel much better and, actually, not feel so angry anymore. It is very unhealthy to keep grief and anger inside you. I cannot emphasize that enough. The next thing you need to do is recognize that in life we often go through major transitions. I have gone through two of them: my attempted suicide at age 18, and the discovery, at 40, that I was gay. Both times, it was like I died and was reborn. Both times were extremely difficult for me, but I managed to emerge on the other side. Riaan’s suicide is like that. The breakup of your circle is like that. A phase of your life has died, but that doesn’t mean you are at the end of life. You are in transition. Recognize that you are in a transitional phase of life, not at the end of it. This feeling of dread hanging over you is the image of Riaan’s suicide repeating in your soul like a broken LP. The Buddhists have something called a 49th Day Ceremony. They believe that when someone dies, there is a 49-day period called the bardo that is a time between one life and the next. After the bardo the soul is reincarnated into the next life. Although Riaan died three years ago, you can still perform a ceremony not so much for him but for you (and Danie). My suggestion to you is that you create a ceremony that is significant and specific to you. It should include two parts: in the first part, you commemorate the old life, and in the second part you celebrate the new. For example, you could take something that was Riaan’s or that signifies Riaan’s life in some way, tie it to a helium balloon, and let it soar far far away. Then, in celebration of the new life, you could, say, plant a tree in his name and let that tree’s new life represent his. After performing this ceremony for Riaan, guess what? Do the same for yourself. You need a rebirth, as well. Again, if you can convince him, get Danie in on this, as well. Ceremonies are not an empty gesture. There is a reason that we have them in all religious, spiritual, and cultural traditions. They are a way of giving form to concepts and beliefs that would otherwise seem too abstract to us. They help us to cope with—and celebrate—the changes that are inevitable in life. In essence, Jean, the reason you are feeling the way you are is because, despite what you think, you haven’t actually moved on and you haven’t grasped the idea of life and death as a transition, not an ending. With transitions, there is hope, while the idea of death as an ending offers no hope. Embrace that life is in flux. Nothing really dies, sweetie. It just changes. It’s okay to grieve over the loss of what once was and to miss your friend, but please see that this is not the end of hope. There is always hope, love, and rebirth; they are as much a part of life as death is. Hugs, Papabear It's sort of a short question but I don't have anybody else to ask. So basically I don't really have any real-life friends at all. I work with adults and I'm homeschooled.
I've known my only friend for almost two years though we both live in the same location. My boyfriend however lives in another country. The question is how to make friends. I'm not the best at anything to get attention and I don't have any idea on how I should approach a stranger. Mars (age 17, Florida) * * * Dear Mars, Being home schooled is really no reason for not making friends, and I’m sure you haven’t been working with adults all your life. What have you been doing up until now to socialize? Even kids who go to a regular public or private school do most of their socializing outside of the classroom. The best answer is to engage in structured activities outside the home when you’re not studying. You could participate in church programs, the Girl Scouts, community programs, or even just hang out with relatives or children of your parents’ friends (unless you’re living in an isolated Florida swamp or key somewhere). You might also be interested to know that in your state of Florida you can participate in local school programs even though you don’t attend the school itself. This is true for ten states in America, including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. In the other 40 states, such rules vary from school district to school district. It must be noted, though, that even in home-school-friendly states such as Florida, you need to meet certain requirements of academic achievement. Check with your local school to learn about the details. When it comes to opportunities to expose yourself to social events and make friends, you have no excuse not to. Now, if the issue is actually that you are a very shy person who has trouble making friends, that’s an entirely different ball of wax. I wrote a column about overcoming shyness two years ago that you can read here: http://www.askpapabear.com/letters/shy-furry-wants-to-overcome-her-fears. In a nutshell, how does one make friends? The best way to meet people is at places where socializing is encouraged, such as at a party or at some group activity. Just go up to someone and introduce yourself. Stick out a paw and say, “Hi, I’m ____! What’s your name?” And, since you’re a furry, a good place to do that would be a furmeet or other furry event. If you haven’t already, join the Florida Furs group (http://www.floridafurs.com/) and make friends there! Sounds like you really haven’t taken advantage of being a furry, which is a huge worldwide community just waiting for you to explore! The only thing holding you back is you! Here’s wishing you many many many furiends, Papabear |
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