Shadow Work, Day Three: Am I STILL the bully?

I'm standing in the shower, and I can feel the hot water pouring down the sides of my face. I've been looking at the wall and have lost track of the time. It's strange for me because I'm a 5 min shower kind of girl... I suddenly realize that it's been much longer than 5 minutes that I've been staring at this wall. Like in the horror movie, Carrie, I suddenly hear the high-pitched voice of her mother. Except it isn't saying they are going to laugh at me. No. It's saying you're alone now. Alone now. Alone now... Like some fucking broken record of my life. Memories are flooding my brain, and someone asks me how I can go to movies and sit in restaurants alone. At the time, I'm in my 20s having spent a lot of time alone. The question is strange to me because I do everything alone. If I didn't, I wouldn't ever do anything. And now fast forward to I'm 38 years old, standing in this shower trying to get up the courage to go to a movie or the store alone because I'm not that independent person anymore. Now I'm this hollow shell of an incomplete pairing and I'm terrified to leave this shower, right now. I feel warm liquid run down my face but it's coming from me. I'm crying again. Why do I keep crying. I have to leave the shower. I go to my bedroom and sit on my bed. Why do I check my phone again. What will I find but 0 notifications. I start doom scrolling. Instagram is full of motivational poems about moving on. Great, my eavesdropping phone also knows I'm alone. But not just that. It knows I'm riding this roller coaster of emotion because one ad is dating apps, but the next one is about death. The man starts talking during a rain drenched scene in a cityscape. He's saying that he doesn't want to kill himself. But he's tired. And if God were sitting across from him, he would say just that. Dear God. I'm tired. I'm done. Can we just go? Anywhere but here because I'm just done. That resonated with me in a way that only sadness can comfort sadness. 

Today's shadow entry isn't about my recent flight or fight response to my impending loneliness. It's about asking the hard questions so that I can work through my barriers. I know you want to know why my boyfriend left me. Today feels like the day I should open that box. I want to start from the very beginning though because that's what shadow work entails. Healing childhood traumas. 

I remember most clearly, an incident when I was 5. Sure, this wasn't the first one, but this is the one I can remember. We are all coloring our pictures of dinosaurs. Fat crayons in hand, working to stay inside the lines. My guy is going to be green. As one colors, the shape curves to a flat point. Some of the girls in my class are coloring their dinosaurs red. Which means that all of their crayons have shaped themselves into lipsticks. Everyone is giggling and applying crayon to their lips like we have all watched our mothers do. I want to play too but my crayon isn't red. The head mean girl points this out and says that no one wears green lipstick. That's just Ludacris. I'm crying because I'm the weird kid and everyone knows it. 

I'm also a military brat, which just means we move every 3 years. With me being the weird kid, this is actually a blessing. But also, a lesson that no matter where you are, if you're the problem, it never leaves your side. That knowledge that all of your problems are because of who you are. Oh, and the problems too. The problems never leave you. I can recount story after story. Go into long drawn-out details about the year the girls stole my diary and spread it like wildfire. Or the year the volleyball team threw volleyballs at me in gym because I'm too outspoken in class and the teacher's pet. I find solace in my relationships with adults. I befriend the lunch lady and the school bus driver. Kids my age hate me. I'm bullied my entire childhood. 

People have asked me, what did I do? It's a funny question because victim shaming. Wow. What does anyone do to deserve bullying? If you have spent any amount of time with me, you will know what I did wrong. I was me. But here is a list of my top complaints: I often open mouth insert foot. I can't pronounce any words of real value. I always say one sentence too many. My opinion is always unpopular and towards the negative side. I lack filter and I usually say everything on my mind. If I'm not saying what's on my mind, my facial expression is doing that. I don't want to say I deserved what I got but I definitely rub people the wrong way. 

In an effort to combat the bullying though, I became the bully. I can't really remember picking on people in the way that others seemed to search for me. I just was reactive. If you talked to me, you usually got some rude response or criticism. As I matured, I lost empathy for others and along with any patience. I grew quick to anger. I want to say that me being bullied stayed in my school age days, but I made a huge mistake that followed me into my 30s. I got fat. I got really fat really fast because I discovered at 16 that the only thing that made my heart hurt less was when my stomach hurt from binge eating. Everything I could fit in my mouth. I ate and ate until I couldn't feel anything else. Then strangers started letting me know how they felt about my existence. I received the most interesting interactions from legit crack heads asking me how I get up with my fat self every day to tall construction workers announcing to a full gas station that the fat girl is holding up the line with my over whelming girth. I want to tell you I imagined it all in some sick self-loathing fantasy I created but ask any fat person how their experience in society has been. Go ahead. I'll wait. I promise you will not find one that has not been bullied by complete strangers for what reason? Being outside of societies beauty standards. 

So, let's recap. I'm bullied in my youth for my personality and then as an adult for my outside packaging. I don't kill myself, so I just rot from the inside out. I eventually reach 450 lbs. It hurts to walk or move. My most recent job has fired me because my boss found my personality to be grating. One of my write ups was, "employee is heard referring to herself as dory, a fictional disabled fish with a bad memory". It's hard not to laugh at the things people often were annoyed with me about. My roommates didn't care for me either and so I call my mother in New Mexico and tell her that I am done with life. Fast forward 8 years and I'm now 270 lbs., living in NM, driving and owning an actual car.... my life has changed so drastically.

However, I still carry the wounds of my previous life. Every day, I feel like I'm a little better than I used to be, but then I get dumped for being mean. That's your answer. My boyfriend left me because I'm too mean. Because I get mad in social settings. Because I say mean things to strangers. Just don't talk to me. That's all I ask. Just leave me alone. I can't with people. When I'm being paid, I can put on a fake smile and act the part of a normal human, so I don't end up homeless. But on my days off, I just don't have it in me to fake a smile. To say good morning to strangers. Or to be thankful that service standards have plummeted since Gen Z started entering the workforce. And for that, along with my several unpopular opinions about life, another man has left me. Yes, this is actually the second man to tell me that they can't be with me because I'm too mean. How do you work through that? And the fact that the two men are 10 years apart tells me that no matter how much we feel like we've changed, we never really do, do we? Does this mean that I'm just too broken permanently? There's no fixing it. I need to find someone as mean as me or that's it. 

You know what I liked about my ex. That he was the opposite of me in every way. Because he wasn't mean, like me. I think that's why this hurts so much. Because I don't think I can ever not be mean. Yes. I heard that. I'm saying it out loud and I'm hearing those words. You know how someone like me controls their anger? I have to take mind numbing medications. I have to take a front row seat to my own life and watch out of my eyes like some projected movie screen. Someone is telling me that my grandma has passed and all I can say is ok. You aren't living a life. You are watching one go by. There is more I'm leaving out in terms of medication and diagnoses. Maybe it would help my story to tell you that they say I have a chemical imbalance and that's why I've always been the weird kid. The only reason to divulge that though, is to tell you that not everyone wants medication to be the answer. I know because I've tried it. And through talk therapy, I've been advised that I can manage as long as I'm always hyper aware of myself and my surroundings. Think about that. I have to constantly check and recheck myself. It's so exhausting. So, I self-medicate with recreational methods, and I sleep. People can't hurt you in your dreams because I entirely control those worlds. I can no longer remember my dreams, but I imagine they are better than waking life because I sleep so much. Probably another contributing factor to my recent breakup. I really do sleep a lot. Better to run than.... well, face my reality. 

I hope that in today's shadow work assignment, I could better shine a light on what I am and why. On how I ended up on day 3 of being alone again. Whether I push people away or they eventually run away on their own, the result is always the same. I'm alone. Just like the Carrie rant circling my head during my shower. Alone now. Alone now. Alone now... 

Shadow Work, Day Two: I have accepted it.

 

The stages of a break-up. Let’s fucking go. 

There’s always going to be research online to back up any opinion or claim. That makes researching difficult. What is a fact and what is just an opinion? Semantics really because aren’t these all just made-up things that we try to relate to anyway? From my very few days on the college scene, scholars will tell you to trust the information provided by reputable/certified/verified sites like “.govs”. But who doesn’t love a good BuzzFeed quiz. "21 ways to know he’s not right for you." I do love my flags red. (Sarcasm people.)

I am going to sprinkle some research into today’s shadow work because I don’t know anything about anything. Admitting it is half the battle, right? I can only talk about the stages I am going through, but it definitely is NOT linear. It is also not a list you go through and once you have visited the 1^st one, you are done, moving onto steps/stages 2-7 or 2-21, whatever magical number of steps someone created to help them cope. If anything, these magical lists of steps and stages are a starting point. But here is my journey thus far.

1. Crying. Omg. I couldn’t stop crying. It’s like everything was a trigger. Why does everything relate to everything else? Like Kevin Bacon’s 6 degrees of separation, but this was dipping into the land of delulu. I think for me, this was the stage of shock and denial. I kept saying that it came out of nowhere and there were no warning signs. This is exactly why this process is not linear. Because I’m pretty sure that leaks into another stage, but we will get there. A lot of questions. And you ask these questions because being confused feels better than this giant hole in your chest. This is where the shock really put its claws into me because I had to keep saying mantras just to walk through a room. You have to keep telling your brain to put one foot in front of the other to go forward. That to me felt like total despair. And so, the tears flowed to ease the pain of existing. The pain was confusing and suddenly you are worried that you are in pain for the wrong reasons. Why am I sad? Why am I crying? Why does my chest hurt? The denial part of this stage is me going through the motions of sadness but secretly expecting that this is all one big mistake and it’s going to be cleared up soon. So, you wait by the phone. The first minute is ok, because you can’t see through the tears anyway. But then it’s been an entire day and there’s still no notifications. No texts. No calls. No emails. Experts say that the silent treatment is registered as physical pain in the brain. Is that why everything hurts? Because you were there and now, you aren’t. Death. You have to mourn that loss. I cry over my recent loss. Loss of love. Loss of companionship. Loss is loss. But wait there’s more…

2. Anger. I felt mad. Did I just waste the last year? And for what? Just to end up back at the beginning. Downloading the dating apps only to grow frustrated that no one believes in romance anymore. “Hey hottie, wanna fuck?” No. No thanks. Then I am screaming into a pillow because I have all this advice streaming through my head and suddenly, I am rationalizing. Bargaining. Was it me. Can I fix it. Why go to grass I haven’t been watering? There's a patch of grass I have been watering for almost a year. I hate him. Anger is better. Sadness is necessary but anger feels good. It feels like I am doing something. I don’t have to tell me brain how to walk through a room because I am running through them. My heart is beating which lets me know I still have one and it isn’t actually broken into a million pieces. Yea, I like this stage. Cross that. I love this stage.

3. Depression and self-doubt. We can just skip this one because if I am not doing one of these things daily, I have been body snatched and we should be looking for the real slim shady. Plus, if you really want to hear me pour on and on about how sad I feel about my life choices, I did just re-publish old blog posts. Enjoy readers.

4. Longing and realization. I am visiting this stage through-out the sadness and the anger. Often to answer some of my confusing questions. Did you know that most people ask questions knowing the answers already? It makes you wonder how many games people play on a day-to-day basis. I don’t think I have genuinely asked (out loud) who-dun-it without having discovered the truth beforehand. In my research on these stages, I learned a new word, rumination. Turns out, there is a word for over thinking with a negative connotation in relation to emotion. IE: Worry. It’s such a funny concept because worrying only means you suffer twice and yet here, we are, all of us, masochistic in some sick but highly satisfying way. Yes pain, more pain. Rick and Morty said it best with a scene where Jerry is hanging out with the crew from Hellraiser and it hurts to hang out with him which feels good. That sums about my life right there. I am not sure what I am longing right now. It's hard to say how far someone can reach the goal of moving on in a mere 48 hours. But I like to think that I miss things. Moments. Memories. All less than tangible but added up together created a feeling of safety and security. Safe as houses. And then you watch the house burn down. Why we do we long for things so easily destroyed? Love is giving someone the power to destroy you and hoping they won’t use it. I long even now to be destroyed again because those less than tangibles things meant more to me than all the gold in the world. So, I realized that no, I didn’t waste my time. I am not rotting like some old maid. I am not dumb or slow. I am just me. And I just haven’t found the puzzle piece that fits my edges yet. But I am going to keep looking. Seven billion people is a very large number.

5. Finally, this journey only had 5 steps, but acceptance and moving on. Obviously, we are too soon to have moved on. You don’t say you love someone and then pretend they were nothing. Sociopaths do that. I wish I was that sometimes. It seems like empathy and sympathy control me more than I would like. I always tell people that if I care about this one thing, I have to care about the other things. I am only one person. World Hunger. Mass genocide. Unfair waring states. It just seems like wherever you look, there’s a problem. I can see why people push their heads into the sand and pretend like it’s all better. I want it to be better. Then I try to compartmentalize my life, because hash tag first world problems. At least I have food in my belly, clothes on my back and roof over my head. What more could an entitled passing for white young American female ask for? The world is my oyster. So, it says on paper. It’s not fair to say my problems are any less important, they are just different. Perspective matters. I’m moving on, not because I don’t really have any other choice. When someone doesn’t want you, you can’t change that. Why would I want to change that? But I do need to go forward and that means saying out loud that it’s done. There’s no going back. There are no more apologies or explanations. That time has passed. When I think of him, I want to imagine that he is finally talking to more like minded people who want to share their lives. I also want to imagine that he is happy. One day I will feel happy again and I hope that imagining my happiness brings him some peace too. I accept that we weren’t meant for one another, and I am thankful one of us was brave enough to do something about it.

Those are my stages as I see it. Maybe a month, a year, 10 years from now, I will read this and think of something that makes me chuckle to myself. There were some really good times. Times of joy and laughter. People going through a breakup only want to talk about the sadness and anger, but there is a sigh of relief that I feel in writing this. You are free little bird. Now apply what you have learned and be better.