Monday, May 4, 2009

16. Who am I.

"It's happening again. I'm becoming consumed by a force I cannot control. I spew venomous verbal vomit; it dribbles down my chin and stains my shirt. It will be a constant reminder of my inability to maintain the dark monster that eats away at my soul; my well being; my mind; my life; my love. How do you tame a beast that turns ravenous on a whim? If you don't know what causes it, how do you stop it? Sometimes I think that I don't really want to stop it because when I put my mind to something I can do it, obviously I haven't put my mind to this or else it would have stopped by now. I think it boils down to my expectations; the standards that I hold others to, but more importantly the standards I hold myself to. I position my bar very high and as a result I have a hard time making and keeping friends; boyfriends; loved ones. The bar I position for myself is even higher and maybe the reason I expect so much from the people in my life is because I except a lot from myself and when I don't meet my own standards, I get very disappointed and I feel as if I should be punished, reprimanded, and made to suffer. I abuse myself when I don't live up to my ridiculously high expectations. These consequences are inevitable, unavoidable, self inflicted, but misdirected. I lash out at those closest to me when I let myself down because I feel like I should be yelled at, but there is no one to yell at me, so I do the yelling. I am such a disappointment to myself that I feel like I should be physically abused, but there is no one to hit me, so I do the hitting. I do the yelling and hitting and disciplining and forcing and arguing and I deserve this, but my victim does not. I want to take this anger and frustration out on myself but I don't, I should, but I don't. After years of knowing this, I finally think I know what the solution is: I need to lower the bar. I need to stop trying to be an image of perfection because I am not perfect. I need to stop expecting so much from other people because they only have so much to give. I need to stop being so hard on myself because they don't deserve the abuse. I need to wipe my chin and take my shirt to the cleaners so I don' t have a reminder of how awful I can be, instead I can have a clean shirt, a clean slate to start anew."

-SM

I fell asleep at my desk during lunch and found this note pressed against my face when I woke up; L's note; my initials.

2 comments:

Mara said...

"I spew venomous verbal vomit; it dribbles down my chin and stains my shirt. It will be a constant reminder of my inability to maintain the dark monster that eats away at my soul; my well being; my mind; my life; my love."This is a great line...I love the alliteration and intense emotion behind these words.

shansPLC said...

Thanks M.J.! I appreciate it, can you believe that just came to be in the middle of the work day, ha, must be my escape from my sometimes mindless and repetitive day job!

thanks for stopping by!

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