Days 4 & 5: Vengeance

24-26092012

I identified a pattern that revolves around vengeance, and I am now trying to find some clarity into that messy pile of memories to figure out what actually happened and how much of it still persists.

I was bullied as a child. The social environment that consisted of my friends was in many ways “dramatic”, where a constant love-hate-battle was in play; one moment we were all best friends, mortal foes the next. At one point during my years in elementary school things took a turn where I was isolated from everyone else. All of my actions were openly judged as “weird” and “inappropriate”, and when I tried to talk to my friends I was completely ignored: no one answered me and behaved as if I did not exist. I remember one particular recess where a couple of girls were walking around the school yard just gossiping, and I hung out next to them and tried to be a part of the discussion, but they ended up walking faster and faster where I could not keep up with them anymore without chasing them and thus stopped and let them go, them laughing and me feeling like an ass. I looked around the yard and saw every girl to have a “pair”, a certain “best friend” that was their primary choice, but I was left without one as a result of some of the preceding drama.

That was the first time I faced abandonment by a group of friends.

I reacted first by withdrawing. I ended up spending my recesses alone, finding places to hide in and inventing new imaginary plays and games to escape sorrow. I hung out with a couple of “outcast” girls like me a couple of times, but it didn't really last, as I didn't enjoy them as much as my old friends. Once my teacher came up to me during recess and asked me if everything was alright, if I was lonely, if I was feeling bad. I lied and told her I'm ok. I could not admit I was feeling bad, that my sorrow was piling up as I was suppressing it. [I still don't know why I could never tell anyone the truth – as far as I remember, I have never been able to talk about my problems openly to anyone, especially any of my family members – and I'm wondering whether I was in some state of denial. This is a major point I'm going to have to figure out eventually.] [Note: may be a mother-point.]

Then it got so bad I stopped going out during recess. I asked my teacher if I could instead clean up this messy closet in our classroom, and I ended up “cleaning” it recess after recess, not actually getting anything done but just escaping the social surroundings of our school yard. After a while the girls (and some boys) in my class came up to me during a recess and asked me why was I like this, why was I always indoors during recess and why didn't I come out like everyone else. I can't remember what I replied, but what I was unvoicedly thinking was pure hatred. “After what you did you're seriously asking me that? Don't you realize what you've done to me?” Once the kids locked me into the closet and I had a panic attack and afterwards I was ashamed of myself. Shame was the only thing I knew for a long time.

Around that time I started to write poetry. Crappy poetry, yes, lol, but for me it served the purpose of getting stuff said I wasn't able to say out loud. What I said in those poems (I still have them somewhere, I think) was that “one day you will get what you deserve”. I wanted the kids to realize the consequences of their actions and told myself the world would someday punish them for for what they did. I wanted revenge but couldn't do it myself: I had no idea how to hurt another and didn't actually feel comfortable with the idea of causing pain. Thus I developed the idea that the world is somehow responsible for avenging me, because “everyone gets what they deserve”. So at the age of 10 I believed in a karma-like justice system to exist within this reality.

I later made up with my friends but harbored bitterness deep within. I could never trust them again, and I saw my distrust in them and general hopelessness about life validated when we all entered junior high school and they abandoned me again. As we switched schools the social scene changed drastically. The school yard was no longer about playing and running around – it was a place to stand still, throw scared and defensive looks around, gossip and develop all kinds of fears and desires by abandoning the least bit of free expression. Everyone was somehow caged; it was like a sideshow of most peculiar fears, needs, desires and emotional outbursts. The school corridors were not simply a place where people relocated, but an anxious showcase of those who played the game and those who dropped out. As my “best friend” told me to fuck off on the first day of junior high, I had already lost the game. I was alone and scared and everyone looked at me offensively from within their own fears, and I believed I was being judged as thoroughly unworthy and wanted to die. I was already at a disadvantage because I was one year younger than my classmates, as I had started school one year early, and I perceived myself so small and insignificant I thought there's nothing I can do to fix the situation.

Pretty soon I ended up re-bonding with my friends, though. It was never a happy friendship with them, as I was still bullied constantly (by them and also by others), but it was better than being alone. They were a bunch of extroverted people with a lot of energy exploding out of them, and the way they expressed their insecurity was by aggressively putting others down – usually I was an easy target. I was easy and satisfying to pick on because I reacted just the way they wanted to: I could not laugh at myself, which would have made their bullying null, but took it all personally and got angry and frustrated and cried a lot. At the time I was too afraid to let go of them: what if I find nothing better? What if I can't be just on my own? It's not a fear I voiced then, but a fear I now see to have been the reason to keep me with those people. As putting us all in the same school and same class was a completely random event, none of us had any choice but to cope and survive; the same fear was probably dictating everyone's actions.

At the end of junior high I had bonded especially well with three other girls, one of them my new confidante. With her I could actually share stuff I enjoyed, such as video games, as I introduced them to her and she seemed really exited about the stuff I was into. She was introverted like me and always treated me with kindness, and I adapted into a more extroverted role within that relationship. I'm still not sure whether she got into the things we did together just because I was into them, but to me it seemed she did genuinely enjoy herself at least for the while it lasted. We were always supportive of each other and that friendship was really important for me to experience after all the abusive “friendship” I had gone through. Within that group of girls I started to feel more relaxed and open up to explore things I could enjoy.

Then we went on to high school and the third abandonment came. The social environment changed again as we were moving closer to the adult world, and I was changing drastically: I had a desire to dress up in unconventional ways, listen to underground music, draw strange pictures and watch anime. It became too much for my friends to handle. They told me they were embarrassed to be around me, told me to stop doing what I was doing and I told them to fuck off. That was the end of it. I felt betrayed. “After all these years you guys can't support me in whatever it is I choose to do? I fucking trusted you! I thought you were my friends!” I was getting angry and wanted to challenge them all, every fucking cunt in the whole school who thought I was a weirdo. It was around that time when I realized I was getting really good at singing and acting and thought to myself: “One day I will be rich and famous. Then I will have nothing to do with you and you will regret turning your backs at me.” The point of revenge was still there, as it had been from the age of 10. The world would avenge me by making me famous, rich and celebrated while the rest of you would be small and insignificant by comparison. You will get what you deserve – I will receive compensation for my suffering.

Around that time I found new friends (ones I kept), but as my foundation was crumbling and I had no idea what I wanted to be and why, I was looking for something to attach myself into, something to define me. That's when I found escapism in depression, but that's another story.

The fourth abandonment was when I graduated from high school. The new group of friends I had made during high school was a supportive and fun bunch, but also lousy in communicating, as was I. What happened during our graduation night was that I fell into fear of abandonment. I was still one year younger than my classmates, so when everyone else was already 18 and had access to bars, I was still 17 and did not. I feared the night would end up with all the others going into the party that was held at a restaurant and me not getting in, but I never communicated that beforehand to anyone. A bitterness surfaced again when I dwelled in thoughts and images where everyone dumps me for a dumb, fun night at a night club with a dumb band and dumb people. As I accumulated that feeling of being unworthy and betrayed, and justified my distrust in everyone, it all exploded when everyone did go to the restaurant and I couldn't get in. I wasn't even there when they tried to negotiate with the doormen to make an exception with me – I already knew what was coming and didn't even bother going with them to try my luck. I poured it all on them and blamed them for my experience, and refused to realize I was forcing them to make a choice that would only benefit me and validate my worth. I'm glad they did not accept my bullshit: had they given in, I would have continued the cycle of insecurity to more extreme measures and eventually crashed.

I'm not going to go on to the fifth abandonment, because so much happened between this and that I can't yet connect them to the same timeline with clearness. I don't yet have the big picture.

A lot to self-forgive and redirect, but I will try and see where I get.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame others for my experience of loneliness, not realizing I am the one accepting and allowing myself the experience, all the thoughts, emotions, feelings, fears and desires included.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear being alone and create resistance towards it, so that as I have then faced loneliness I have not been able to just be within it as myself, as a being that simply has no other beings around it, without reacting to it with negative emotions and fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe being alone is something “less” and having company is something “more”, when in fact they both just are as equal states of being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to see others suffer because that's what they “deserve”, not realizing that as I demand the world/universe/god to avenge me, I abandon my responsibility to direct my own experience by changing the situations I live in into such that are enjoyable and best for all by for example discussing it with those involved, addressing the problem and realizing that issues exist; I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to, as I did not know how to do this, not ask for help from an authority to assist me in solving the situation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not talk and thus straight out lie to those whose purpose was to assist me (parents, teachers, older siblings), thus making myself unassistable and inaccessible.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want suffering for others, not realizing that more suffering for some means more suffering for all. I now see and realize that the desire to bring more pain into this reality will bring just that, and that it's brought upon all, including myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create more pain into this reality by wishing for it, dwelling in it, speaking and writing of it and eventually even causing it through my actions in the physical. I now see and realize the way the creation of pain is accumulated and manifested into the physical and will no longer take part in it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hurt myself by wishing pain on others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abandon my responsibility of my experience of pain and suffering, not realizing I am the one creating the experience and accepting and allowing myself to experience it, and instead blame it on (give the responsibility to) those who I perceived to have caused it. I now see and realize that it was never their responsibility to carry, and that this is why I will never receive any compensation or reward for the suffering I went through as pain is completely optional, and that I as the one who chose pain am the one to compensate for myself by letting go and allowing myself to be free. I am the one who gives me what I “deserve” (= what is best for me), and that is to be free of malice.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize how harmful not communicating my experience to others is for myself and consequently for the entire existence.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that limiting my own expression by not communicating is actually self-abuse, a violation towards myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe others will judge me if I share my experience with them and thus fear sharing my experience with others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive the reactions of others as judging as I have shared my experience with them, and limit myself accordingly.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear being judged, ridiculed, belittled and mocked, not realizing all of this is just a perception I create based on what I see of the reactions of others, none of which is the complete truth and therefore is not to be taken personally.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think and believe others “ought to” know how I feel just because within my experience the feeling is so intense or “big”, not realizing what we see and sense of the individual experiences of other human beings is ever so limited, and that if I demand others for sympathy when I'm not doing a thing to understand what drives their actions and choices, I am being selfish (in the negative sense of the word), ungrateful, dishonest and totally living a lie as I believe all the justifications I live by.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not treat others as I would like myself to be treated; I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not live as an example.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to accumulate emotions by limiting my expression up to a point where I actually manifest what I fear the most.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the consequences of limiting one's self-expression.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to escape the environment that I was reacting to and perceiving to be judging, instead of facing it as myself, stable and here and fearless.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think less of myself because I have not had the right tools as a child, not realizing that as I child I had very little power over my life and choices, and that as it is one of the ways society now manifests inequality, we are all responsible for messing kids up.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel shame and guilt over my past self, not realizing the only thing that matters is what I am now and how the present me deals with whatever is left of the past. I now see and realize the past and future me's are not here right now and thus they cannot be used as reference when evaluating my present self, making all judgement invalid. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge/evaluate myself with measures that are not here and not real.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look for clues that would validate my belief that no one was trustworthy, ignoring all evidence that stated otherwise.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make others “less” by believing they are not trustworthy and looking for “proof” that would confirm my belief, thus making myself “more” in comparison and defining myself accordingly.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to adapt into the social scene of junior high unquestioned, as I was afraid it would lead to more bullying.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to compromise myself in junior high according to what I perceived the social environment to dictate.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the social environment is just a contract, where everyone has agreed to play their parts to create that which is not real by being that which is not real. I now see and realize the reason I was not happy as and within myself was the way I was suppressing myself and trying to become something I was not to fit into the image I wanted to be / I perceived others to demand of me. When and as I did compromise myself and act out something I was not, I never achieved what I hoped I would and ended up more confused and disappointed. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I have to become what I perceive my environment to want of me, not realizing it is all just my perception and interpretation of what I see from the reactions of others, and that becoming something I know only as an image is not the same as knowing how it is to live it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be abused.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to collapse as soon as I perceive someone to judge me, thus making myself unable to see the bullshit and address it when and as it is there.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I am not equal to everyone else and thus adopt a defense mechanism through which I make others seem “less” than even my down-put self, making myself appear “more than” them but not actually being any more or less. I now see and realize I refused to carry responsibility of my own experience, and that I make myself “more” by not bringing myself down, but allowing myself to be of the worth I actually am. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not stand here within myself as one and equal to all that is.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect people labeled as “friends” to provide unconditional support, now and always, not realizing people change and may “grow apart” (= choose to not walk the same path).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to accuse another of “betrayal” when my expectations have not been met, not realizing I am the one responsible for the experience of “being betrayed”. I now see and realize those situations have simply consisted of people making choices, others reacting and accordingly making more choices – the expectations were created by me within and as the mind and they were never real.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I can be “more” than others by being rich, famous, talented and liked.

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I'm starting to have a hunch of what lies behind all this. I once described that I was addicted to my social surroundings to define myself for me and prove for me over and over again that I'm ok, I'm enough, I'm good, I'm liked. I did not believe in my own worth at all. I'm guessing this attitude towards myself is something I inherited from my mother. I'm gonna have to dig deeper into this mother point.