quote

my quote of the moment: "if you can attain repose and calm, believe that you have seized happiness." ~julie-jeanne-eleonore de lespinasse

August 4, 2012

sticks and stone may break my bones....

...but words will scar and kill me.

and oh the words and thoughts that go flying around my head. things i've heard, that were actually said to me, in another place and time. though, truth be told, some were said in a much more recent time. i've tried to leave all those mean and evil people behind, but still, their words stuck. and through some wicked twist of fate, i can't remember names and historical date and grammar rules, but these things that have been said to me, these i can't forget:

i am stupid and lazy and ungrateful. i am worthless and hopeless and useless. i'll never be able to change, i'll always be this pathetic, this damaged. why try? i can't fight my inevitable failure. i am always the same, full of  the same lame excuses, the same ineffective attempts at fixing things. i should really know my place and stick to it. and i should also know what my responsibilities are and try not to mess things up completely. or let everyone down, as usual. because don't i know how lucky i am to be in a place like this? don't i remember how it all began, how terrible it all was. how bleak. how dark. do i really want to go back there? don't i know how much worse it could be? then i better try harder at changing. and always remember to thank my lucky stars i'm not back there.

what's funny, in a dark sort of way, is that growing up i didn't realize how wrong it was to let people talk to me like that. when i was young, i knew all about physical and sexual abuse, how bad it was and what to do if it was happening to you. but back then, nobody ever told me there was such a thing as emotional abuse.

i thought, for a very long time, that certain mean people said stuff like that to everybody. i knew they were mean, but i thought that i just had too thin skin to let it all bother me so. the other not so funny part was that there were times where i was so desperate for attention and companionship, i willingly subjected myself to their attacks and abuse, just so i wouldn't have to be alone. and like someone who was physically abused and stays in that toxic relationship, part of me wondered if i didn't deserve it. if they weren't being mean, but actually kind, telling me the things i needed to hear so i could try and better myself.

it's kind of strange now, to think what i put myself through because of others. how everything could have been so much different if somebody had noticed what was going on and actually told me it didn't have to be like that. which is also why, i suppose, i worry so much about my own children. because i still remember the fine line between playful teasing and outright meanness. and i don't want them pushed across it. and i certainly don't want them doing the pushing.


**something i wrote a few months ago and never posted. it ties into the previous post**

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