Quiet mouth, LOUD mind

I am a serial tongue-biter.

I don't think this is a bad thing, necessarily, because it has prevented me from getting fired/divorced/deported on many, many occasions. Many, MANY occasions. There's something to be said for practicing that much restraint, and sometimes I'll even reach over and give myself a little pat on the back. And if I pat myself a little too hard because of the anger that has built up in my little 5'2" frame, then so be it.
Oh, but then there are the TIMES. You know the ones. The times when it is physically painful for you not to utter those words. And it doesn't make you proud of yourself at all when you choose not to say them.

I am a peace keeper.

Goes right along with being a serial tongue-biter.

Sometimes, to keep the peace, you have to bite your tongue, hold it in, clamp off the 'ole mouth geyser. Ugh, but that is so hard! And sometimes, it's wholly unnecessary. I always wonder what people would think if I actually said all of the things that run through my head. Some of it is not pretty....and some of it is just plain ridiculous. (My mind wanders a lot) I tend to try to avoid arguments whenever possible, because once those hurtful words are out, there's no reeling them back in. People can forgive, but they will never forget. Those words are immortalized and branded into their heads, and no amount of Haagen Dazs ice cream can repair it.

My dysfunctional mind relies on two techniques:

1) Humor, and 2) Silence. I use humor to deflect all kinds of behaviors and situations, and that started at a pretty young age. I was a goofy lookin' kid, so humor got me out of more than one altercation with a potential bully. (Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't) Also, I grew up in a house plagued by alcoholism, so sometimes humor helped to distract the house from the imploding activity in the front room.

Silence...now this came later, when I figured out that sometimes no matter what you said, certain people weren't going to listen anyway. My head is safe - no one can get me in there. Of course, looking back, I realize that this is a pretty effed-up way to be. I think in a healthy world, we can all speak our minds * in a tactful way* and still be heard, still be listened to, still be taken seriously.

Unfortunately, I don't think we're in a healthy world. Not yet, anyway.

So I retreat. And retreat. And retreat.