Regardless of your life, your childhood, your genetic predispositions, who you had sex with, where and whether you said no or not, there is one thing you can do to overcome all. Own it.
I wouldn’t be as me as I am, if I hadn’t unintentionally started doing so.
There are tales I’ve told, details shared, that pull gasping reactions and pats on the back. That’s not what I’m here for, though. I’m not looking for someone to tell me that what I’ve done, conquered, blocked out, is okay. That I’m strong or a survivor.
I’m not trying to wave a flag of prior abuse and a wear a sash proclaiming me an abuser because I want people to learn from me. I don’t think people much learn from other people at all. I am simply, like I said here, someone who chooses to see a “line and step over it, just in case someone needs to see a friendly face on the other side.”
We all make mistakes. We all fuck up – it’s the human condition by definition: evolving through learning from mistakes. It’s what we do about those choices we made, how we go forward that affects our future karmatic deficit.
Yeah, I feel like a shitty mother for yelling at Isobel. But I choose to not feel like a shitty person because I explain to her exactly why I’ve yelled and what it is that she can do differently to lessen the frustration or panic I felt to bring about my raised voice.
Yeah, I treated JDawg like shit at points. But I’ve never constantly treated him like shit. When I didn’t, even when it was excessively undeserved, I’ve been the model of best friend to him.
I’ve said goodbye to friends easily, harshly and publicly. And from those good-byes, I’ve not carried forward the same mistakes and mistrust into the other friendships I’ve made. And I’ve never not acknowledged my part in a scenario.
In any scenario.
So, point is.
I was abused, emotionally and physically by my father. But I chose to let it continue.
I took the really bad drugs at a really young age. Because I wanted to be fucked up.
I started an eating disorder at seven that would continue – depending on your viewpoint – forever, and it’s cost me more than nearly anything else could. But it’s made me really fucking candid about everything else, because when you wear your pain everyday, it’s not possible to hide the stories that go along with it.
I got raped because I said no at the last possible moment. It took me a few days to walk, then I told the fucker off. Six months later, I kicked him in the balls.
I found out my father was dying and I pretended as if our relationship was unmarred. And it made hating him after his death so much easier.
I cut my mom out of my life a decade ago. Then I let her back in nearly two years ago. But with some distance.
I’ve been bipolar for more than half of my life and repeatedly attempting suicide was the salvation I needed. Every single time. Now, it’s not anymore, because of those times.
I’ve grown amazingly close to people I’ve never even met in person. Closer than most I have. And I don’t regret it for a fucking second.
I don’t regret any of it, really. Because it made me me. Screwed up, emotionally unavailable, at times needy and untouchable, shrinking away from hands and embraces, self-degrading, unable to accept a compliment, quirky, sarcastic, an ear, a source of advice, self-absorbed, a bookworm, a writer.
I am, at my most simplest of forms, a culmination of everything that’s happened to me and that I’ve caused to happen. And the next steps afterward.
But what I haven’t been willing to do, ever, is simply be a victim. You will never catch me professing wan attitude over lives not being ruined, acting as if I have the sole right to hurt about it. If I ever attempt to help someone by telling my story about fucking people over, shoot me in the head because I really don’t want to be that self-important.
The day I wake up and think that my drama is fucking wisdom to other people and that I have a responsibility to share it, at the risk of negatively impacting several others, just to help even one? A cleaver – right in the chest.
Because that me that I am? Is a blogger, man. I’m no fucking more important or smart or talented or wise than anyone else. And I’m certainly not willing to rip people’s hearts from their chests to demonstrate it.
Einstein said “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” and it’s perfectly true. I’ve learned and moved forward to be able to own my shit because I’ve done different things, expecting different results. And gotten them. In fact, I’ve been most surprised in life when I’ve gotten the same results from different actions.
If I was being deceitful and frankly a manipulative bitch, I’d expect to be treated like one. And I’d deserve to be, until I repaired the damage. The way that is most appropriate to the damaged parties, not my spiteful, self-serving, flaky self.
