Could Not Help Myself

It is not something I feel I can say. “I just could not help myself.”  For me that statement never rings true.  Even when people are under the influence of drugs or alcohol or even upbringing I feel everyone has a choice.  When taking drugs, it was a choice to take them in the first place.  If anyone is like me, inhibitions are compromised, and I can easily do things I would not normally do.
In the early days after my stroke, I was seeing a psychologist.  The chats were interesting, but I told him I would not be hypnotized (it was one of his methodologies.)  The reason for that was I was not willing to be under the influence of another person and have choice taken from me.  I may have still had choice, but I would be prone to making the wrong one.  Probably things would have been fine, but I was not willing to go there.
Life can be confusing enough without adding more confusion into the mix.  I make choices to be under the control or influence of another.  But hopefully that is a rational choice I make without cloudy judgement.  I need to be able to trust implicitly the one I am influenced by.  I have a problem ceding control to someone who may be very well-meaning, but is just as fallible as I am.
So hopefully I cannot say I just could not help myself.  My fallibility makes me predisposed to judgements that are flawed.   I fight battles with me before I even face battles with anything else.  My chances of victory over another or a situation I face that is unpleasant, are diminished without a sense of self control.
I reckon for some it is way tougher than anything I have experienced.  For some responding in the wrong way is habitual.  It is often the “go to” response.  But just because something is my “go to” way of dealing with a matter, does not make it ok.  Sometimes the “go to” way can seem incredibly destructive to oneself and others.  Throw in an element that distort judgement and anything is possible.  Sometimes the unthinkable can happen, although it seems mostly it is a case of quiet and not so quiet desperation.
But for me it is a case of going by something someone aid to me decades ago. “It is not how close to danger you can go, but how far you can keep from it.”  I know me well enough to know that is good advice.