Days 0553 & 0554

I know The Pill is meant to be this hugely liberating thing for women and I know it was back in the late 60s/early 70s but I hate the bloody thing.

I was hesitant to use it: I like the way my body tells me stuff as it waddles and bloats along its 28-32-day journey.

As much as it hurts sometimes, it’s terribly comforting to feel the *pop* of an egg making its way out those tubes like clockwork.

So, like I say, I avoided it. Besides, why should it be MY responsibility alone to make sure his tadpole didn’t cause trouble??

I resisted until I was 30 — pissing one or two people off along the way (which equals 50%-100% of males who were pissed off with me for that).

And then I tried it. It was hideous. I had a month of morning sickness followed by weight gain. Of course I didn’t gain weight in the places I would have liked and watched it glom onto the places I didn’t want it.

And my PMS was much worse. And it never worked — my bodily rhythms kept busting through until I had my period constantly apart from a one day break every once in a random while.

So I chucked them all out — those stupid foil packets — and thought: Fuck this.

I was long-married by then so it wasn’t like I was having sexual relations anyway really (I’m sounding bitter here, aren’t I)?

Then I had a kid.

And they added birth control pills to the veritable bonanza of drugs I was ingesting for the first two years of kid’s life until I finally chucked those out too. I hated taking them even more than the anti-psychotics that made me keep losing my car when I parked it in town (thank goodness for remote locking and flashing headlights).

Then I got rid of the blight on my life that was He Who Shall Not Be Named and entered a world I had never actually been part of: boyfriends and dating.

And the men were all (the two of them) like: ‘Oh, oops, I thought you would have taken care of that’ and ‘I just assumed you had — oh, jeez, sorry’ and ‘Is it safe?’ (that one made me laugh: like there was meant to be some coded word answer to that one — at least Halfman made me laugh albeit AT him that time) or the inelegant ‘Can I finish in there?’ (Halfman again, but that one didn’t make me laugh — it was more like finding a long and salubrious nose hair wafting from a loved one’s nostril at the apex of desire).

I do take responsibility for myself of course, I’ve found the ways that work for me. And I will not compromise them for someone else’s pleasure. At least I’ve stayed true to that one through all my other mistakes.

Day 0417

Inneresting. I was just told that while I can’t blame the insane (and not cute insane but batshit nasty insane) people in my life for their insanity — goodness only knows you can’t help the hand your parents and fate deal you — it is perfectly fine to expect them to take responsibility for their actions.
And if they can’t, for example, behave appropriately with a child, then I have every right to make sure that child doesn’t have to spend time around them.
It’s a bit refreshing after so many (many many) mental health pros telling me that unfathomable compassion is the only response to the Total and Utter Crazees out there.
So, the person in my son’s life who is nuts and who will always be part of his life can be considered a ‘condition’ that my son has to deal with. And I am allowed to take steps to make sure that condition doesn’t cause him more difficulty and suffering than it needs to as part of the reality of his life.
Somehow thinking about it this way takes away the constant edge of guilt I feel for not having been able to ‘fix’ the situation. That doesn’t mean I absolve myself 100% but it’s a nice start to lessening the weight I’ve felt for nine years.
What it doesn’t do however, is erase that bad case of ‘Wishful Thinking’ that travels around with me wherever I go. The bit of me that sees a pinhole of light while sitting in a black box and thinks ‘the sun is shining’ or who looks at someone who has hurt me and thinks ‘but at least they didn’t — me, and maybe one day they’ll change …’
Someone please hit me over the head with a Tom and Jerry mallet the next time those words enter my head. Please.

Day 0415

Unfortunately there is a very real chance on Friday evening that I will have to exist in a room that also contains Halfman.
In most ways I’m over the idea of that being difficult. But I’m not silly. This time of year carries some unpleasant Halfman related memories and seeing that bag of flesh in close proximity (where close equals confirmation we live on the same planet) will be enough to bring them crashing back across me.
So my mind has been wandering a bit.
I know he wants to be the victim in all this. How he gets there would have to be pretty twisted and self centred.
I don’t have the guts to do it but I think I would enjoy the opportunity to make him look me directly in the eyes for a moment.
Those eyes that used to look gently at him, to watch him as he spoke to me, that took in the languor of his sleeping body in my bed.
I would like for him to look into my eyes and see the mountains of hurt and the justified anger that would meet his gaze now.
And I would like to accompany that moment with the words: Look at what you did. You took that loving, caring look and turned it into this with your actions. This is your responsibility. Don’t run from it. Wear it. And then I will start to forgive you. Slowly.

Day 0379

I find it interesting as I re-enter the world of new relationships that the men I meet seem very articulate and knowing and responsible when it comes to birth control. At least, they certainly are able to speak as if they know that they carry at least half the responsibility and would do the right thing in a certain situation where it might be required.
I know this mainly because I worked for a while with an organisation that required me to understand attitudes towards birth control among men, and there were a few that I felt comfortable asking for their opinions.
But, within a much smaller sample size, my experience is that being able to articulate this may in fact indicate a proclivity for the opposite action.
One said to me at the crucial moment, when I said ‘wait a minute’: ‘oh, I just assumed you would … You know .. Have that taken care of.’
Delightful. And – I hope – a lesson in disappointment for him.
Another, who certainly seemed a feminist type and well informed and intelligent just said – again at that moment: is it ok?
Which basically meant, have you taken responsibility?
Is that kind of dickwad self-contradiction as obvious to them as it was to me?
Or do they think that’s ‘shared’ responsibility. And if I answer ‘yes’ or ‘ok’, does that suddenly make me totally responsible for any consequences?

0150

I am thinking heavy thoughts again. Not sure why. I prefer light thoughts and wordplay. But anyway.
Someone tried to sell me a narrative yesterday. One that explained someone’s very poor behaviour toward another person by saying: they acted poorly because they were subconsciously begging the person to yell at them and get angry. They wanted to stop behaving the way they were because underneath they didn’t want to act that way.
What a load of bullocks.
For one, the poorly behaved one, when told their behaviour could not continue said the truest thing they ever had: I was hoping it could keep going the way it was.
That rather puts a lie to the whole ‘subconscious’ thing right there, doesn’t it?
And it makes sense he would hope that it continued because we live in a culture that forces men to act like they are loyal and monogamous while praising them for raking through the ladies.
A culture that says: you’re not responsible for the blood you spill, you couldn’t help it because you like the colour red. It’s really the fault of whoever made you like the colour red etc etc.
Anyway, I am a master at creating my own narratives in retrospect to try to explain puzzling behaviours of my own.
But I think I have learned through multiple error that life is not a novel, that pathetic fallacy is a literary device, that characters only really make sense on a page, that human lives almost never have ‘structure’, and that rewriting your own history in your head or to a counsellor does nothing to ease your responsibility for hurting others.
If you didn’t take the escape hatches that were given to you, if you didn’t choose the path away from hurting and betraying, if you pretended to be True but lied the entire time, you are a Fuck Wit, not a victim.

Responsibility = Able to respond

Here is a terribly deep question for a Monday afternoon:

Am I responsible for another person’s mistakes? Especially if they don’t take responsibility for those mistakes themselves?

Of course, I know I’m not, that would be ridiculous, but that doesn’t stop my brain from telling me I should have fixed everything when I had the chance.

My rule of thumb is a tad rigid (surprise!) and has always been:

If you couldn’t stand for people to know about it, don’t do it, Let me pluck an example out of the air: for instance, If you don’t want people to think you’re a two-timing bastard, don’t cheat on your spouse. If you don’t want people to think you say stupid things, don’t say stupid things.

I mean, we all make mistakes and errors of  judgement, but I think a Real Human Being wears them, maybe not proudly, but wears them as part of the many coloured cloak that is Them. I can forgive just about anyone for being themselves, but not for complaining when their self is presented back to them.

I’ve stuffed up many times, hurt many people, made bad, pathetic and ridiculous choices. I wouldn’t like it if any of those mistakes were plastered publicly somewhere, but I would realise that if I did or said those things, I can’t really complain too much without looking like a complete dick.

Day 0145

I’ve spent such a lot of time struggling not to be a victim, I find it almost impossible to imagine someone choosing to look like a victim willingly. But then there is always that victim guilt too which asks: what should I have done to prevent this? What did I do wrong?

Being a victim means being forced into a position where you’re cornered, afraid, fighting for yourself.
Acting the victim means pretending to be forced but really knowing you’re not.

That just makes me want to yell a frustrated why?
But I’ll try to be coherent.

Imagine a Young Married who exists quietly comfortable in the image they’ve let build around them that they are bullied and hen pecked by their spouse.
They don’t defend their spouse when people point this out. They just quietly accept it. Or say, hands in pockets, staring at their feet, ‘yeah, X is so painful.’
What advantage is there?
Is it in everyone starting at a point where they sympathize for you? So you can manipulate advantage? Buy some goodwill? Gain some sympathy?
Because that doesn’t make me sympathize, it makes me think the person is weak. And disloyal to their spouse. It makes me want to yell: Stand up for yourself!

Imagine another person who has lost a friend through lies and treating them poorly.
This person perceives the lost friend’s upset as hurting them and can’t manage an apology through their pain. So they lose the friend forever.

Is the issue in both cases a lack of responsibility? A lack of belief that one has control over the choices and happenings in one’s life? Or does the person feel so much that life overwhelms and tramples them with its intensity? And they just lie there, face in the dirt, hoof prints on their shirt, pleased to be breathing?

At the end of a life of acting like a victim, would you look back and say ‘I couldn’t do anything about any of that: it happened and I was there’?

Is that living?

Day 0030

This is taking me places I never expected to go. I grew up in a family of scientists though I am not one. It took forever just to believe a psychologist was ‘scientific enough’ and I’ve been helped by many. But now, when those scientists keep looking at me like I should have known better, when they see the pattern but don’t think it’s relevant, when they tell me not to have so much faith in people … It’s time to try other things. I still need to translate the touchy feely ‘the world is a great big circle’ language into ‘scientific’ language but I’ve finally found someone who can see the pattern and draw the connecting lines for me. I still don’t think there is a point where really bad behaviour is no one’s fault. I still think people need to be held accountable for their actions.
Actually it’s kind of funny how psychiatry and this type of counselling meet at that point: some people are just injured or hurt and can’t help their horrific actions.
But there must be a point where you can dismiss the individual based on what they’ve done? It doesn’t mean I wouldn’t offer comfort when they cry, just that I no longer see any potential for Goodness. Is that fair?