Sweden is Nothing Like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory...

    Everybody thinks that Sweden is the land of chocolate; Swiss Miss Chocolate, Toblerone, etc.  Well, you're wrong. Their main exports are actually machinery, motor vehicles, paper products, pulp and wood, iron and steel products, chemicals, and military armaments; oh, and psychological phenomenon.

Yes, I said psychological phenomenon.

Stockholm, Sweden; it's a beautiful place.

How could such a beautiful place produce psychological phenomenon?  Well, they actually don't. They just have one named after them.

STOCKHOLM SYNDROME

If you've never experienced it, thank the gods; if you have...well...saying "I'm sorry" just doesn't seem adequate enough. It, as the above picture so perfectly explains, is hell without any fire; it is a nightmare unlike anything you've ever had, even in your worst wet nightmares...

Imagine this (no, we are not going to talk about Sicily...): An existence where you always find a way to take the blame for everything AND everyone; an existence where you fear, more than death itself, angering a person; an existence where you walk on eggshells...around yourself; an existence where the first, and last, thought of the day is "What will I do to make *said person* angry today?"; an existence where through all of that, you feel sorry for (and sometimes even love) your "captor"; an existence where you...well, where you do not actually exist...

Can't imagine that?  Be grateful; be very, VERY, grateful.  Living your life, and sacrificing your happiness, to make someone (or others) happy no matter the cost is...well...to put it bluntly, a pile of hot steaming emu shit. It is hell.

People talk about "hell" and it conjures up images like the one above; fire, lakes of sulfur, and a man in a red suit with a pointy tail/horns/pitchfork.

THAT. AIN'T. HELL.

Personally, I believe hell is here, on Earth; we live it, walk it, breathe it every single day. However, this is not about that. Hell is, for a fact, within; being trapped inside yourself, knowing that what you show on the outside is not what...or who...you are. And you cannot do a goddamn thing to stop it. Nothing. You're just...trapped.

That is Stockholm Syndrome. It is hell. And the worst part is that even after you've come through that fire, you still find yourself sometimes doing things that you did then; coping mechanisms you did not even realize you taught yourself to survive. And it could be the most obvious, or the most obscure, things; it could be a 5 pack a day smoking habit, it could be stress eating, it could be hiding in a tiny room, like a bathroom...

And these coping mechanisms? Well, they can persist for the rest of your life; and as a result, they can drag unwilling parties through your remnants of hell that may well always exist; and 90% of the time, you won't even be fully cognizant that you're doing it...until something hits you, like a freight train, in the back of the brain pan.

You may ask yourself how I know all of this (actually, you probably aren't, but just humor an old man).  Well, truth be told, I am a survivor of Stockholm Syndrome; medically diagnosed. And the coping mechanisms? Well, I have mine; and I drag two beautiful women through them, not even fully aware that a coping mechanism has been "activated".

To those two beautiful women, "I apologize" is not adequate enough; wind-blown promises of change are just that...wind-blown. I do not make promises I do not believe 110% that I have every intention of keeping, but I know I have no control over this; I would be a fool, and a liar, to say otherwise. Just know that I love you both, and I am forever "indebted" by the fact that you have put up with my "shit" (quite literally at times) for lo these many moons.

The long, and short, of it; I hope you never have to endure this. It is terrifying; worse than anything you can imagine.

Be well, all; may the moon light your travels.

~Cowboy