I suppose I am a fairly strange creature in many ways ( no smart remarks please). Ex Dom, ex Fire Officer, ex husband, ex just about everything really. Of course the 'here and now' is the most important and that is quite clearly me being MT's slave.
There have been many changes/developments since MT and I met. Some of what I considered to be permanent traits/ beliefs etc have either moved, been eradicated or evolved into something else or been overwritten.
An area which has yet to change is part of what MT refers to as 'my service drive' - the bit in question was just described by MT as 'my psychological compulsion to help people'. I never really gave it much thought really, my drive to help has been there for as long as I can remember, it is an inherent part of me. Whilst this drive can indiscriminate in some cicumstances, and while I do have a weighting system, I also have a specific quirky subconscious drive to help some people who are either pretty fucked up and/ or are arseholes.
MT and I spoke about this in bed the other night (after I had done my duty of course ;) ). I confessed (which she knew already) to having a lot of empathy to people who often have no friends or hardly any and/ or to people who treat others sometimes either not very well or even quite atrociously, sometimes, if they are fucked up enough even if they have treated me badly. If they are fucked up badly enough I start to see it almost as a disability.
I suppose, having my own history of being slightly less than a perfect human being ( OK massive understatement ) I have some understanding of being that type of person, and perhaps there is also an element of acknowledging the real world and all of it's faults, and all of the human failings/ shortcomings.
There have been many times in my life when I knew what the right thing to do was, but deliberately chose another path, sometimes for my own benefit, sometimes for the benefit of others, and sometimes just for the hell of it.... So I guess, when those with similar traits come across my path I understand them a little better than perhaps some other people do. In my 'logic' they are perhaps no different to someone who has a physical difficulty, be it temporary or permanent eg a broken leg, an illness or disability etc.
The difficulty can arise when X person does Y (to me or someone else) and then I end up feeling guilty because I can no longer help them. Often this is because I can not risk the consequences because they will adversely affect our present and/or our future. A recent incident has occurred with a person who I have been helping, who really went too far, yet I still feel this tremendous guilt and desire to still help them, even though I know that it is not possible for me to do so, and MT has very firmly vetoed this thought.
MT has been reshaping me to be slightly more discerning on this, and this is the biggest incident of this nature for a long time. It is not a conscious drive to be a good Samaritan or anything like that on my part, I just seem to end up being in the position... but of course it is by my own action, even if it's a somewhat inadvertent action.
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