Do You Feel Victimized?

Most things in life you can't anticipate. A car accident, an illness, a fall in the shower, etc. you just have to decide if the risk is worth it.

When this happened my MIL said "well I know I won't be going anywhere with big crowds ever again". You can't stop living life because bad stuff happens. I just told that yea it's a scary thing but I am just going to keep living my life because we are never promised tomorrow and what kind of life is it to ahit yourself in for "safety". Something could STILL happen to you, someday something will happen to you because we all die eventually and while I don't really want to die, I know I will be going home so it's not the worst thing. But what can you do other than live your life

I get it though. I won't ride on motorcycles after witnessing an accident as a kid. I won't fly on airplanes since witnessing an accident at an airshow (not a passenger plane of course but still). Something in you changes and that fear is not always easily controlled, it just works out that my fears are easily avoided without drastically altering my life. This does not seem to translate to cars for me though. Seen accidents but not scared of cars... Although I never wanted my license until I was 28

Yesterday while talking about the marathon my mom asked me "Are you scared at all?"

No. Did I have that moment of "Oh my God, I'm supposed to run next weekend..." right when I heard it happened? Oh yes. Absolutely I did. And of course people always talk about copycats... somebody completely unrelated but is sick enough to go "Hey that's a GREAT idea, let me go kill all these people here!"

But it didn't linger.

It is my job to put on my shoes and go run for those who can't anymore.

So I will.



I think you can't really control if you are afraid or not, but you ARE in control of if you're going to let that fear dominate your life or stop you from doing things. I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with somebody saying, for example, "I'm afraid of airplanes so I don't want to fly." I think if it gets to a point that it's inhibiting you living your normal life that's a problem - but most people can honestly get by without ever setting foot on an airplane. =P

Well, I am aware that every time I get in my car, the main goal is to really just get to my destination in one piece. I can control the way I drive, be aware of crappy drivers and notice bad situations etc. I know there is a risk every time I get in a car. What I'm saying is... watching a marathon shouldn't be a risk. You shouldn't have a reason to be careful and cautious. And because it is so random, to an extent I can understand why it makes people afraid, at least so soon after.

I'm having a hard time putting my thoughts into words!

No I don't.

If I lived right in Boston like Fran and saw everything in person and had it affect my life by being on lock down? Hmmmm, yes, I would probably feel victimized......at least for awhile.

Whoever said 9/11 was the first they realized the world was small....that kind of woke me up too. I DID feel victimized after 9/11. It just never crossed my mind that anything like that could happen here and when it did it knocked the wind out of me. I've always seen the coverage of other countries who suffer terrorist attacks constantly, I've always felt for them.......but you know, that was WAAAAY over there.

So I think once I got over feeling victimized with 9/11 and come to terms that it COULD (and DOES) happen here, it's not so easy to make me feel the victim again.