Soulshine

“You can’t just sit there and put everybody’s lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love.” Sam to Charlie, The Perks of Being a Wallflower The average codependent is very good at putting everyone else’s lives ahead of his own. Everyone else comes first for an active codependent because he believes that everyone counts in this world—except him. Since he thinks he doesn’t count, he has to find value somehow. And so it seems logical to him to find value in earning affection, much like everyone earns a paycheck at work. So, the codependent person becomes accustomed to putting everyone else’s needs first. “Your wish is my command” is a primary codependent motto. The average codependent subconsciously repeats this motto to herself as she busies herself attending to the every want and need of others while neglecting her own. She then anxiously awaits the payoff, which is usually receiving a few crumbs of affection in return. And all the while, Mr. or Ms. Codepend...

“So I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we’ll never know most of them. But even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there.” Stephen Chbosky , The Perks of Being a Wallflower Friday I attended a talk by author Stephen Chbosky. At one point in his talk, he focused on Charlie, the protagonist of his book and film The Perks of Being a Wallflower . He said that he wanted to portray Charlie as the nicest person in the world. Charlie is someone that everyone should love. He’s kind, generous and loving. He accepts people as they are and consciously works at refraining from judging people. He’s open-minded and honest and trustworthy. His life should be perfect. And yet that is far from the truth. Charlie has suffered greatly at the hands of his family. As a small child, he was sexually abused by his Aunt Helen. Somehow, the rest of the family was totally oblivious to this big white elephant disruptin...

“Why do nice people choose the wrong people to date,” asks Charlie. Mr. Anderson pauses briefly, then responds, “Well… We accept the love we think we deserve.” The Perks of Being a Wallflower, 2012 The film The Perks of Being a Wallflower is all about people (high schoolers to be exact) who think they don’t deserve love. Charlie, Sam, Patrick, Mary Elizabeth, Brad, Ponytail Derek: None of these people think they are deserving of real love. Charlie was sexually abused as a child by his Aunt Helen. She died in a tragic car accident as she was on her way to buy five year old Charlie a birthday present. He blames himself for her death and for the fact that she abused him. Sam was also sexually abused as a child by her father’s business partner. Since that time she has accepted sex from every creep who would have her.   Patrick is Sam’s gay step-brother. It’s the 1980s and being gay isn’t as acceptable as it is today. Patrick is bold enough to b...