eI new a young woman once -a sociopath, although I didn't know it at the time- who greatly helped me, even thought she didn't know that. And when I told her so, she sarcastically, coldly, mockingly replied "You don't say" and walked out the door.
One time she came to visit me and sat down on a chair at the foot of my bed and said:
"I have a problem: I have two I's. One is good, but the other one is bad. My good I wants to be loving to people, but then my bad I puts itself in front of me, and won't let me."
I was in the neighborhood of her parents house once after dark, and as I approached it suddenly heard her mother scream. I came close to the open window, and saw her mother hold up a baby in front of her face, and scream as loudly as she could at it.
It embarrassed me so that I quietly withdrew from the window, not wanting for her mother to see me witnessing that.
(If I would see something like that now I would probably make my presence known and say something. Hoping it would save the baby further pain.)
That young lady taught me that I had it in me to want someone else to be truly happy, even though all I got back for it from her was scorn, denigration, humiliation, and lots of emotional pain.
So I'm grateful to have had the opportunity of having her in my life for a few years. How else would I have the certainty obtained from actual experience that when called for I would even let someone give me hell if otherwise she would have had no place to stay after her step-dad had beaten her so hard that she temporarily had lost her hearing on one side.
This was in rural Mexico where I lived at the time. There were no facilities there for cases like hers, and she was playing with the idea of becoming a prostitute unless I would give her a room in my apartment and be like a second mother and father to her.
There was a small American community passing the tourist seasons in the town, and a friend of mine -a Vietnam veteran- once told me that they though I was having sex with that still under aged girl -which I wasn't- and were planning to take me out of town one night in a van and lynch me, unless I would throw her out of my house. Somehow I decided to let her stay, willing to take the risk.
The last time I saw her she had gotten pregnant from a young boy her age, and had moved in with him at his parents place. She came to see me one last time to have breakfast with me. As I was frying some French fies in a pan she suddenly appeared in the kitchen door, and leaning against the door post said "What do you think you're doing?! I want my breakfast now, not tomorrow!"
Luckily I was used to her behaving like that, otherwise I might have thrown the boiling oil at her...
After breakfast she said she needed money for a cesarean, "My hips are narrow" she said. But I did not have that kind of money anymore, and knowing it was not true I laughed and told her she was young and strong, and would have no problem. She just got up and walked out the door without saying a word or looking back. I pleaded with her to at least say good bye, as she knew I was leaving Mexico to return to my home country, but she was too pissed and just kept walking away.
I followed her with my eyes, and wished her well.
But I'm grateful for her "educating" me, "education" meaning "guiding out what is there inside."
I also wrote how she taught me that one can enjoy a bliss so great that even the prospect of having sex with someone you are in love with and find super attractive is not interesting at that moment. I posted it in the thread I started entitled "Choice and Will".
Behind her bad I her good I still knew how to help me, even utilizing her bad I... and I say her good I was her real I. I learned it through the experiences she made me have; not to judge by appearances.
Including my own now. I mean my "bad I", with which I would identify and condemn myself a lot more not having had her as my tough trainer than I do now.
What a great gift she gave me!