Michael Jackson - Man In The Mirror

A colleague asked for my thoughts about Michael Jackson. I said I’m not surprised But I haven’t given it much thought either. They thought MJ is interesting blog material for me. Image writing about Michael Jackson, how long do you think that would take me? Too long to try and keep my thoughts together. But I did give it more thought and here I am writing about Michael Jackson.

I grew up with Michael Jackson. It was hard not to. Everyone listened to his music. The girls screamed and shouted his name and lined their bedroom walls with his poster. It was hard to miss the craze. I was never a big fan of his. Although, I do appreciate his music and his extraordinary talent, back then I didn’t have any interest in any artist.

It is no secret that Michael Jackson’s childhood was everything but a childhood. He openly admitted his father physically and mentally abused him on Oprah. He was whipped, beaten and traumatized throughout his childhood. His father sat on a chair with a belt during rehearsals – there were consequences to pay if it was not rehearsed the right way. Rehearsals were ridiculously incessant with no time for MJ to go outside and play with the other young boys. MJ often cried from loneliness and would sometime get sick and start to vomit upon seeing his father.

Who Michael Jackson became as an adult was due largely because of his childhood. I’m no psychologist but I do know if any child were traumatized to the extent that he was they would require extensive therapy to heal the wounds within the soul. And if they could never get to that place of total acceptance and forgiveness, their body would be riddled with extreme levels of anxiety for almost every scenario dealing with human interaction. However in today’s society, we have a pill for every ailment including mental and behavioral illnesses.

Not to get off topics but something to consider. If we are only learning today the capacity of the brain, how it functions and how it is put together, then how is it possible to already have developed and manufactured medicine to control the brain? Too many unanswered questions in my world to pop pills effecting brain control. It’s out of my realm of comprehension.

Unfortunately, as many already suspect, Michael Jackson was taking a lot of medication to cope with his anxiety among other mental illnesses because of his sever childhood trauma caused by physical and mental abuse. MJ had to become Michael Jackson to protect himself from further abuse. He had no choice but to become him. He took on his identity because his life relied upon it at a very young age.

I’m not surprised it ended the way it did for Michael Jackson. It saddens me that in this day in age we resort to pills that evidentially do not work. Some pills are to suppress emotions stemming from thoughts that cannot be forgotten, some are for performance anxiety and sleeping, and some pills are to make you feel happy and alert. And then there is the pill to fix the damage caused by all the other pills. And by the way, they don’t know the long term affects of damage control pill either.

I could only begin to imagine what Michael Jackson went through throughout his life. The detachment and conflict he felt each time he looked in the mirror. He had everything but happiness. He even believed he was being selfish for being unhappy with all that he had and punished himself more. His inner child wanted to play but playing is forbidden at his age. Michael Jackson had everything and was being selfish –or that is what he believed. Instead of looking in the mirror and loving himself, validating the little boy the one he felt lived inside of him, all he saw was Michael Jackson, the man he had to become.

RIP Michael Jackson 1958 to 2009

Michael Jackson - Man In The Mirror