Imprisoned by what you believe

On Monday night I stayed late at dance class, chatting to one of the girls. In short, she's a great girl with a lot of complications in her life, many of which stem from long-term strife with partner and emotional abuse from family. I don't know the whole of it but I do know that she is treated very badly by the people in her life, mostly because she allows them to.

When I told her to ignore family members and not to go to family affairs where they put her down and speak badly of and to her she replied, "I can't do that; they're family - blood - and I have to". Girl, you don't. You don't have to do anything, especially not with people who treat you badly, even if they are family.

On this and other issues I asked her, "Would you choose what you are living and putting up with from family and partner for your best friend? For a daughter? Then why make this choice for yourself?". She wouldn't want this for anyone else and yet she chooses this for herself. As for issues with her partner... "But, I love him". There's love and there's habit. A woman who is beaten to a pulp by her hubby says exactly the same thing.

You.do.not.have.to.choose.this!

Coincidentally, I'm reading a Dean Koontz book (mmm... he used to be Dean R. Koontz way back) - haven't read one in years. Velocity. This same night a paragraph caught my attention.

There's this weird artist who makes massive 'sculptures' - constructions. Once they're complete, he burns them. The scene is at sunset and the dying sun's rays are being reflected off the metal.

"What riveted him was the the great figure caught in the stylised machinery, the man struggling to survive among the giant grinding wheels, the tearing gears, the hammering pistons.
During the weeks of construction, as the mural had been crafted and refined, the man in the machine had always appeared to be trapped by it, just as the artist intended. He had been a victim of forces larger than himself.
Now by the peculiar grace of the setting sun, the man didn't appear to be burning as did the machine shapes around him. He was luminous, yes, by uniquely so, luminous and solid and strong, not being consumed by the flames by impervious to them.
Nothing about the phantasmagoric machine made any engineering sense. A mere assemblage of symbols of machines, it had no functional purpose.
A machine without productive function is without meaning. It can not serve as a prison.
The man could step out of the machine whenever he wishes. He was not trapped. He only believed himself to be imprisoned, a belief born of self-indulgent despair and herewith revealed as fallacious. The man must walk away from the meaninglessness, find meaning, and from meaning at last take upon himself a worthwhile purpose."

My friend needs to get away from the noise; to spend time away from the company of the people who have been digging, digging, digging into her confidence and sense of self worth to find who she is and what she wants and to regain the emotional strength to stand up to them. Until she realises that they are nothing but non-functional, unproductive structures, she will remain imprisoned by her belief in her jailers.