Ok, here is my latest weird thing ... I'm meeting a trainer this morning about boxing lessons.
How weird is that? Even for me, kind of out there.
It's hard to explain why I want to do this, even to myself I think. I'm not, and never have been violent or aggressive, and I'm looking into low impact/minimal contact lessons, no actual potential for damage, because I enjoy having my teeth and a decent, unscarred face. I have never looked particularly favorably on it, it's kind of brutal taken to the actual competitive level. I certainly wouldn't want to hurt anyone else, not even inadvertently and with complete assumption of risk by both parties.
This stems from past experiences. My childhood left me completely fearful of, well, everything. Authority, confrontation, adverse situations. Always questioning myself and my self-worth. Never able to stand up for myself. As the psychiatrist said to me just this week, "you were a doormat". In particular, the father issues again, how he treated me, how he made me feel about myself.
I guess I feel like facing down an opponent, even if it's all just "pretend" with some guy who specifically isn't out to hurt me, would somehow be my way of facing down a man who has been dead for fourteen years and then telling him to go fuck off and get the hell out of my face and my life for good.
I don't know if I should do this... Maybe it's just too weird, even by my standards.
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I'm not a psychiatrist/psychologist, but it seems to me that your therapist is getting through to you and finally pushing things from the subconscious to the conscious.
You're realizing that you really are an awesome person worth fighting for/defending!
Have fun with it and after a class or two you'll decide whether or not you like it and whether or not to continue. If it were me there are quite a few faces I would imagine on that punching bag, LOL!
I hope you'll let us know how it went. Have a great time with it!
I'm sitting outside the gym and I'm afraid to go in. 
What does that say about me?
Probably that, if I'm this afraid, I really need to go in.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.
William Shakespeare, "King Henry V", Act 3 scene 1
Wish me luck, guys.
keep it up and you'll be ready to spar for an hour like Rowdy Roddy Piper, in an alley.
"Put... The Glasses... On!"
I wasn't sure how people would take this. If I posted the same in GD I bet a lot would jump all over me because of boxing's reputation as "macho brutality".
Trust me, I'm about as far from macho as it gets, and I seriously doubt this will be a blood sport for me.
Hell, right now, my arms hurt so much from throwing punches, badly, that I can barely type this. 
