This is a message to myself, essentially.
But a big part of the destructive pattern that formed around me due to being an unwanted and resented child was a strong tendency to minimize my existence.
More specifically, to exist as little as possible. To always be trying my hardest to take up the least amount of space and other resources that I could. And to do my best to disappear so that nobody is reminded I exist.
In other words, to minimize myself.
This tendency essentially hijacked the “freeze” part of my “fight, flight, or freeze” response, which tells you that you can only be safe from the predators all around you if you go stone still and make absolutely no noise.
Like the scene in a slasher movie where a character is hiding from the killer in a closet, hoping he doesn’t detect her there.
But he probably will.
It’s just that my predators were my family. They were the ones ready to punish me for existing at the drop of a hat.
I don’t know how many times my Dad told me not to “attract attention to myself”.
And back then I was far too meek to do what I wish I had done now, which is to ask why the fuck not?
My siblings don’t get told not to attract attention to themselves. What makes me so different, dear old Dad? Why I am expected to be fucking invisible?
Why don’t I have the right to exist?
Don’t be such a pussy, Former Me. Demand equality. And raise holy hell until you get it.
I wish I could send that message back in time to my young self. Along with the chutzpah I now have that would have allowed me to stand up for myself.
There is no rage quite like the rage of a former (or reforming) coward. I put up with so much crap all through my childhood and my only way to cope with it was to cling to my life raft made of TV and video games and block out the rest of the world.
And all that shit eating has left me with a hell of a lot of anger. Anger that I had no way to express back then.
For a long time, I have known about all that unattached rage inside me but I have been too scared of it to find an outlet for it or even acknowledge it openly.
I have been scared specifically by the feeling that if I open the door to it expressing itself, the resulting nuclear level explosion would blow my sanity to pieces.
Probably not a reasonable fear. But I have it nevertheless
But with every day, I grow stronger. And as I thaw myself out and open up my heart to feeling all the feelings that I can, I grow larger in spirit and soul, and more capable of handling strong emotions like rage, lust, and envy.
Because it’s high time for me to stop trying to be Good Kirk from the Two Kirks episode of Star Trek and learn that episode’s lesson that we need our bad sides too.
So yes, I’m nice. I’m very nice. And I will always be super nice.
But I will not only be nice. I will expand my capacity to advocate for myself, to demand I get what I am owed, and to protest being treated like I don’t matter.
I do matter, god damn it. I have as much right to live and breathe and take up space as anyone else in the world and I have so much to contribute to the world once I manage to get my head on straight.
So watch out, world, I’m coming.
Any day now.
More after the break.
Ah, the cool refreshing taste of a Fresca, which is of course, a female fresco.
Catching up with myself
Having more than the usual amount of trouble catching up with my brain right now.
It’s like chasing a hyperactive toddler around because you are trying to get them dressed for a big event and they just want to run, run, run around naked.
I guess my mind has always been a little hyperactive. Not in a diagnosable sense, of course, just as a way of describing having loads of mental energy and strength and not having nearly enough to do with them.
For the most part, though, I never had trouble slowing down and focusing. Maybe all that time I spent just thinking about things when I was severely bored in class had some kind of practical application after all.
Certainly, when there was work to do, I had no problem focusing long enough to do it. That put me ahead of other hyper-bright kids whose lack of challenge led to them having behaviour issues and a very troubled childhood.
The way I saw it, the schoolwork and the lessons were the only teeny tiny breaks in the boredom of class so I might as well focus on them.
The work was absurdly easy for me and listening to the lessons rarely ever took more than a small slice of my massive mental bandwidth, but it was better than nothing.
School is the only thing I have ever been really, really good at.
Well, the only definable and verifiable thing, anyhow. I am good at dozens of other things but I haven’t proven it yet.
And yeah, I have thought about going back to school. For what, I don’t know.
At the moment, honestly, I would want to go back for law. I really want to know if all this intellect of mine could make even law school super easy for me.
Remember, I have never been challenged by school. Even college was absurdly easy for me. I barely felt the increase in difficulty at all.
And wouldn’t it be amazing if that just carried all the way through to passing the bar? And then a career as a top lawyer?
I would love to fight for the little guy against big corporations and the rich.
Of course, not a lot of people go to law school at the age of 50. I mean, I would probably be 60 by the time I actually practiced law.
Oh well, it would be something to do, anyhow.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.