Locus of Control - Everything I need to know about life I learned from a Stephen King book.

Sometimes it feels like things just happen TO me, that my life's recent "locus of control"' is external.  That goes against much I BELIEVE though (or want to believe, grrrr), that we have more than a semblance of control over our lives, our bodies and our responses to people and life's changes.  We can't control those around us, as hard as we may try, we can only control our reactions to them - which is can be very powerful if practiced.  Perhaps it's my own polarized reaction to Catholic school, and taught if we only were good and prayed hard enough, we'd be blessed,that we should put our faith in God because he is the cool white bearded dude in the clouds with all the answers and the blueprints of your life ready,   I just can't buy what they are selling, sorry. I'm a heathen.  I spend my days talking to people about ways they can control their life, improve their coping and survive amidst the chaos - I help them find their own external locus of control.  When life is spinning out of control, as it has for a few years,  it can feel like even the good stuff is 'just because' because I popped out a kid with a disability which wasn't all that hard.

Owen's Baystate Parent cover, my article inside, my recent appointment to the advisory board for DCF - all these amazing things, that yes I 'initiated' some of them, but they all happened 'because' of Fragile X -  if it wasn't for Fragile X, these things would not have happened.  It makes everything feel - undeserved. 

Everyone loves a happy ending.  We can only cry with happiness for characters in relief when their pain is over.  We can only know happiness if we also know tragedy, and movies reinforce that dichotomy.  But to me, in real life, when good comes from bad, well, is it really good then? Wouldn't we have all been better off in the first place without the bad,  happy and oblivious in Italy instead of making the best of Holland? 
And the irony that doesn't escape me is the message of my last blog - stop being so hard on yourself. I didn't really do it, it's nothing, it's no big deal, discount success.


But I think of my DCF advisory board membership, where there may be a sprinkle of 'karma' from good deeds from long ago, when I went out of my way to help someone who many would say didn't 'deserve' it.  This person took control, took responsibility, persevered and overcame the odds to be an amazing success, and I was in some small way a part of it.  I went above and beyond for them, went out of my way to help, in ways only the young and naive and foolhardy often are.  Maybe it was karma, maybe it was kismet, maybe it was because of my actions.  But I do know, 10 years later, that person helped me, and that's a seed I planted 10 years ago.

I'm currently reading Stephen King's  new book, "11-22-63".  Last night while reading, I was struck by the line "We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why."  Steven King might say that reading that line on such a day was more than a coincidence, but I'm not ready to admit that....yet...