It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
In losing my sexual innocence at such a young age, I gained abilities far above my age that made my choices for me. Therefore, all of my relationships have had a dark edge to them that I’m still processing; I do not want to live in darkness anymore, and I want to choose light. I have an ability to be manipulative to the point that I don’t even realize I’m doing it. Now I’ve got the realization and it is painstaking but worth it to go through all of the relationships I’ve screwed up by trying to hide my real self.
The ones that are the closest to me take the brunt of my illness and as I have said before, it is huge. I say things without thinking that floor them, and they have no idea how to respond, so they retreat………. which is exactly what I wanted. I don’t need you. I’ve never needed anyone. Why should you be any different? You’re just going to screw me eventually….. we might as well get it over with…….. That is my illness. To get you to run away from me because I know you don’t want me, anyway. You say so, but you don’t mean it. It’s ok, no one else does, either.
Those are the tapes that have allowed me to live in darkness until now. Those are the feelings so deep-seeded that they cause me to react with anger when it isn’t necessary. To fight to the death because then I don’t have to think about how much emotional damage I am to you when we’re together. I know I’m a tornado. I know you can’t take it. So I make sure you won’t.
How’s that strategy workin’ out? Not so much, actually.
When I saw how my ability to degrade myself was spinning me into Katie Ka-boom, I realized that my destructive abilities were winning out over rational choices. Anger was making me go to a place I didn’t recognize, and didn’t want to. I learned a lot about my base self in 2014, what things triggered me into darkness and what didn’t. I took stock of the people my darkness drove away, and what it must have meant to them to have someone in their lives so ridiculously hard to love (at times). I had to look at why I needed to make it so hard. At the time it made sense to me- the tapes running in my teenage head said that I needed to hide my real self because no one could love that person, anyway.
My entire reality flooded with warmth and light when I saw just how much it wasn’t true. Having women write to me and tell me that something I’ve written resonated with them, or stayed in their minds long after they thought it would made me see that I absolutely spill my guts out on this web site and therefore, the impossible person I am to love is out there in black and white and PEOPLE LOVE ME ANYWAY.
I make it my choice to see your ability, and I am humbled by it. I can only say in the smallest, most sincere voice in the world, thank you.
Stories That Are All True 