It seems that I have two moods in life:
Happy, but tired/exhausted/busy,
And depressed, but with plenty of time/energy to waste doing nothing.
Throughout the week, I was the former.
Today, I am the latter.
I did end up telling my fiance everything and being fully transparent about everything.
I still need to make the blog post I've been wanting to for the last month--I literally did the deletion of the five blogs over a month ago, on 12/11/2023, and it's now 1/12/2024 and I've still yet to do the blog post about it.
I know exactly what to say, I just haven't put in the time to write it out and say it. It would be yet another apology, because I need a lot of those it seems, but also doing my best to affirm people.
I don't really know what I want to talk about today though.
I've come out of my "safe mode" of Michelle fronting, and things are largely good.
My fiance and I have an actual mattress now, on an inclined base, and have two weighted blankets to help us sleep. The sleep is great, and paired with my CPAP machine, I feel I am getting a wonderful night's sleep, the best I've ever gotten. I managed to take my measurements, loosely, with measuring tape which I randomly found at work.
But, I do have a lot on my mind. I'm a bit worried about Danielle, the toxic Persecutor in my mind. She's basically the exact opposite of everything I want to be, and I'm terrified she's going to come out and cause more harm. I want to become basically empathy personified, and she is the exact opposite of that.
Danielle is selfish, self-centered, brutal, callous, blunt, and entirely uncaring to others. Her perspective is close to that of what got me in trouble in the first place. She has bitterness and resentment aplenty, as well as cruelty and an appreciation for the consequences to others. She is entitled and believes in the bad happening not being bad, has a kinda "so what?" attitude towards what we have done, and is basically the voice of all the vile things we want to leave behind.
It should be noted. Danielle is not evil. She's not a sociopath. She's no psychopath. She's not even a monster, or even really monstrous. A bit narcissistic, a bit arrogant, a big jerk, but far from evil. She's a vicious self-defense mechanism, and she often makes scarily good points. She has us as her best interest, and in her own way, wants to do the right thing for us...but her idea of the right thing is in opposition to the entire rest of the system, and her idea of the right thing is too harmful to allow.
She's trying to do good for us by saying. "We have rights.", basically. We are not evil, and don't deserve to be treated that way. We are not monsters, so don't deserve to be treated like one. We are 'not the problem', so don't deserve to be treated as problematic. We have a lot good to us, and to not see it is to be foolish. Basically, she is an advocate for our self-worth, and that's not inherently a bad thing!
We have a very very very very low level of self-worth, so someone has got to try to tackle the task of boosting ours.
...But it can't be her.
Danielle's method of doing so is self-destructive and is part of how we got into this mess in the first place. Her idea of showing our worth involved displaying our importance in a very harmful way that only caused pain and suffering which caught up to us later.
And yeah, that was all of us. Not just her. We were all involved. She also advocates for herself personally and says not to pin all of our wrongdoings on her. Which is fair and valid. But like...we know her way and what it does. It causes harm. It hurts people. So to have her hovering around in our consciousness is alarming.
We don't want to hurt people, and what she would say, would. Now, could the hurt from her comments potentially lead to greater good? Yeah! Maybe self-advocacy at the cost of potential harm would lead to a greater good where the people we hurt realize Danielle's right and what she said has merit; cutting us off does nobody any favors and does no good to anyone and only prevents healing, or something to that effect.
But, at least in our opinion, that's too large a risk. It's too large a risk it's the other way around--that the harm caused from self-advocacy is harmful, showing a lack of empathy, showing a lack of understanding, showing a lack of having accepted and learned, demonstrating I am everything they didn't want to believe I could be, that the harmful content they saw from me is my truer self.
So, we aren't really entertaining her, and she's taunting us about it.
Basically she keeps saying things along the lines of,
"Everyone will regret their actions if you don't speak up about your thoughts."
Because, yeah.
I have had a lot of thoughts.
As selfish and self-centered and arrogant and narcissistic as it sounds. I've seen a lot of messages from the universe directed to those I've hurt which have basically said, "You're demonizing someone you shouldn't have. Learn to love them, and you will have a much healthier life." But, I don't want to assume. I don't want to intervene. It doesn't seem like it's my choice, my decision, to make. That I should have no part in their discovery, their journey, and that they need to realize it on their own.
And Danielle disagrees.
I've felt the people who cut me out of their lives are going to have regrets down the line for having done so--and Danielle is basically saying "that mistake is theirs to make, sucks to be them but you did what you could". Which, well, I could do more by trying Danielle's way, but I don't want to. Trying it my way, the way of understanding, of empathy, of healing, I am doing as much as I can to atone. I am trying my hardest to embody joy and positivity to uplift others and bring ripples of optimism into the world.
I'm trying to do the right thing always, including reducing harm and increasing healing. I removed the harmful blogs. I have changed my mindset. I have changed what I do with my actions. I've done as much as I can think of to do with my actions to embody being what I want to be, that force of good in the world.
Danielle is basically a voice telling me I should be blunt about this and be upfront about it. Say, "Hey. You will regret missing out on having me around when I have already changed. I have already undergone the growth you would want me to have. You will eventually see I've been this wonderful for this long and regret having cut me out and not having talked to me, not having approached me, and have remorse for having not seen the good in front of your eyes. I messed up, but you are in the process of messing up, and afterwards, you will face the same regrets I have, regretting what you did as I regretted what I did."
But...I can't accept that as an acceptable take, or viewpoint. Because that viewpoint would ignore their pain and ignore their suffering and the hurt they feel. That outlook would ignore their viewpoint, and discard their concerns, their worries, their caution. That viewpoint would discard their perspective. It would renew concerns about my character. It would affirm all viewpoints about my continued disregard of their lives, it would renew their fears I am a terrible person by showing them how selfish and entitled I am.
And they deserve their own agency, and deserve their time to heal, and deserve their time to decide things on their own. If they end up regretting what they did--well, then, I can console them by saying I'm an ~expert~ at regretting my past decisions. So, I can help them then and only then live with their decisions. Everyone is trying to do the right thing, and they are included in that. They have no ill will behind their actions. They did what they thought was right.
They acted the best they could, off of what information they have available, and I have no right to deem their actions wrong. I have no right to say they made a mistake. I have no right to judge them. I have no right to any negative perception of them because they are all wonderful people who are trying their best to do the right thing. They genuinely believed cutting me out was the right thing, and only time can judge if that was the right thing to do.
It's their life to live, not mine, so I have no say whatsoever. All I can really do is live my life the best I can. I know I messed up in the past. I know I made mistakes. I know those actions carry consequences to them, and people trying to do the right thing judged my actions had consequences and decided what those consequences were. That I am a better person now doesn't mean I should get a free pass for what I did before, and everyone gets a say in what's important to them.
If who I am now isn't enough to warrant me remaining in their lives given the extent of my past mistakes, then it isn't enough and that's valid and I need to respect that boundary.
I don't know what's the right thing to do, but I always have to try to do the right thing. And I want to be the one who can take the path of least harm and greatest good. I know I won't do perfectly, but I also have to trust myself in listening to what would be a mistake and what isn't a mistake.
Ignoring "this doesn't seem right..." is what got me in trouble in the first place. The whole drama kickstarting things involved a negative feedback loop/negative feedback spiral (it probably has an official term but I'm uneducated so I invented my own for this concept), where I ignored the voice saying it didn't seem right, and the result was longlasting widespread harm I could've stopped if I had listened to the voice back then.
I don't know how to do the right thing, often I'm unsure of what is a mistake and what's not, but I do know many wrong things to do. Listening to Danielle feels like it's the wrong thing to do, even if she makes valid points. No matter the validity of what she says, anything which violates the agency and independence and understanding and perspective of others, is only going to cause further harm with no good to come from it.
So, I gotta respect boundaries, I have to keep going and trying to pursue the right thing.
I think that I do need to leave behind at least some of my mentality from the last month, but that my mentality for the last month has been mostly in the right direction. I've been blogging rather continuously (mostly) since December 7th. In that time, my thoughts have been well-documented. If someone randomly stumbles into this blog but hasn't read those blogs, all I can really do is ask them:
Please read those.
Please don't judge me by any one individual blog, or strategically selected blogs.
Read a month's worth of blogs, in their whole, and see if something in any individual blog is an indicator of the whole.
I know, that's effort, and work. Especially given I'm verbose. When I designed this blog, I designed it to be about anything. Whatever I had on mind. And I also designed it knowing I am a writer. I exaggerate or downplay things. I also imperfectly express ideas. I can have a perfectly fine concept that works in one sentence and cause harm by having multiple paragraphs about it. (For instance, saying I have friends who are ride-or-die? Harmless! Explaining this concept in multiple paragraphs in a way devaluing non-ride-or-dies? Harmful!)
I can express things imperfectly, I can express things in ways that don't make sense without context, I can express things in exaggerated form, I can express thoughts I know aren't true from imposter syndrome, I can express alarm at intrusive thoughts, I can express frustration at dealing with internalized bigotry, etc. My blogs are often flawed, because I'm flawed.
But the whole is important and tells a different story than any individual blog would. In the last month, my perspective has been laid out bare fully exposed on this blog, albeit with redactions of my darkest most-suicidal impulses.
For full disclosure, I was in fact suicidal last month. I felt I could only cause harm. I felt everything I did only made things worse. That I was a terrible human only good for hurting people and increasing their pain. I felt nothing would ever make things better, and I just wanted out. I was in pain. I was hurting, but I felt I had no right to be in pain.
I was the one who hurt others, and their pain was the only thing important. I was the one who caused harm, so my feelings were irrelevant and pretending I mattered would be toxic and only cause further harm. I was the one who was in the wrong, who had done the hurtful things, so I had no place to be anything but remorseful and regretful. Actions have consequences, my actions carried consequences, and I had to accept those consequences.
The pain of others was the most important thing. The hurt I caused was the only thing important. Respecting others was a top priority. Their pain was the most important part. Their hurt was valid. Their perspective was valid. As far as they knew, I was a terrible person who confessed to being involved in something terrible and was remorseless and demonstrated no awareness or mindfulness of how horrific the ordeal was. Even if the truth was I was mortified by what I did, they had no way of knowing how horrified I am by my actions and thus they acted in the way appropriate.
They did the right thing, they are good people doing good things and they are in the right and they are protecting people from me. And that's valid. Everything they did was just, and their feelings are valid and real and important. Their decisions are to be respected, and they are right to have expressed what they have and to act as they did.
All of that and so much more.
My remorse is there. My regret is there. My acknowledgement I did wrong. What I did will haunt me for life. I will carry my wrongdoing with me for the rest of my existence, and it will eternally be there, a reminder of the harm I caused. And I need to atone for it. I need to do the right thing. I need to always be better than I was before.
Almost all of that, in the last month, still stands.
But, as much as Danielle scares me, I don't think demonizing me leads to any good. Those who would are valid for having done so. They're not wrong to do so. Their perspective matters, and is important, and if their perspective is I'm an irredeemable monster, it should be accepted and respected. But, while their viewpoint should be acknowledged and respected, it's okay to disagree with their viewpoint while still accepting its validity.
It's okay to acknowledge them and what they think, while disagreeing. My disagreement doesn't mean I will disrespect them. I can still see their perspective, know where they are coming from, acknowledge their validity, respect them and their actions from their perspective. I have to believe I am a demon/monster/whathaveyou to them...but I don't have to believe I am a monster myself.
I know, it's dangerous to believe I'm less flawed than I am. That's what got me into this mess in the first place. A belief I was in the right, when I was in the wrong, is what caused the harm in the first place. I know, it's a bad idea to have the arrogance to believe I am infallible. I know, it's best to take caution to avoid past mistakes, and that caution means acknowledging I have done wrong and the wrong I did was wrong enough to warrant consequences.
But, being overly critical of myself interferes with my ability to make a difference in the world and to atone and to redeem myself.
I need to believe there's more good in me than bad, and the good is the more important of the two, to generate the light I am looking to. I know there's those who would think I don't deserve that, or that I'm not. And they're valid. But while that viewpoint is good for them and productive for them, it's not productive for me.
There's a lot I can never change.
I can never change the past.
I can never change others.
But, I can change myself, as well as the future.
I will do more good in the world by being aware of my failings but not letting those failures define who I am.
And I hope that's acceptable to those who read this.
I'm not sure I can do good. But I'll certainly be trying. I hope that one day, that will be good enough.
Happy, but tired/exhausted/busy,
And depressed, but with plenty of time/energy to waste doing nothing.
Throughout the week, I was the former.
Today, I am the latter.
I did end up telling my fiance everything and being fully transparent about everything.
I still need to make the blog post I've been wanting to for the last month--I literally did the deletion of the five blogs over a month ago, on 12/11/2023, and it's now 1/12/2024 and I've still yet to do the blog post about it.
I know exactly what to say, I just haven't put in the time to write it out and say it. It would be yet another apology, because I need a lot of those it seems, but also doing my best to affirm people.
I don't really know what I want to talk about today though.
I've come out of my "safe mode" of Michelle fronting, and things are largely good.
My fiance and I have an actual mattress now, on an inclined base, and have two weighted blankets to help us sleep. The sleep is great, and paired with my CPAP machine, I feel I am getting a wonderful night's sleep, the best I've ever gotten. I managed to take my measurements, loosely, with measuring tape which I randomly found at work.
But, I do have a lot on my mind. I'm a bit worried about Danielle, the toxic Persecutor in my mind. She's basically the exact opposite of everything I want to be, and I'm terrified she's going to come out and cause more harm. I want to become basically empathy personified, and she is the exact opposite of that.
Danielle is selfish, self-centered, brutal, callous, blunt, and entirely uncaring to others. Her perspective is close to that of what got me in trouble in the first place. She has bitterness and resentment aplenty, as well as cruelty and an appreciation for the consequences to others. She is entitled and believes in the bad happening not being bad, has a kinda "so what?" attitude towards what we have done, and is basically the voice of all the vile things we want to leave behind.
It should be noted. Danielle is not evil. She's not a sociopath. She's no psychopath. She's not even a monster, or even really monstrous. A bit narcissistic, a bit arrogant, a big jerk, but far from evil. She's a vicious self-defense mechanism, and she often makes scarily good points. She has us as her best interest, and in her own way, wants to do the right thing for us...but her idea of the right thing is in opposition to the entire rest of the system, and her idea of the right thing is too harmful to allow.
She's trying to do good for us by saying. "We have rights.", basically. We are not evil, and don't deserve to be treated that way. We are not monsters, so don't deserve to be treated like one. We are 'not the problem', so don't deserve to be treated as problematic. We have a lot good to us, and to not see it is to be foolish. Basically, she is an advocate for our self-worth, and that's not inherently a bad thing!
We have a very very very very low level of self-worth, so someone has got to try to tackle the task of boosting ours.
...But it can't be her.
Danielle's method of doing so is self-destructive and is part of how we got into this mess in the first place. Her idea of showing our worth involved displaying our importance in a very harmful way that only caused pain and suffering which caught up to us later.
And yeah, that was all of us. Not just her. We were all involved. She also advocates for herself personally and says not to pin all of our wrongdoings on her. Which is fair and valid. But like...we know her way and what it does. It causes harm. It hurts people. So to have her hovering around in our consciousness is alarming.
We don't want to hurt people, and what she would say, would. Now, could the hurt from her comments potentially lead to greater good? Yeah! Maybe self-advocacy at the cost of potential harm would lead to a greater good where the people we hurt realize Danielle's right and what she said has merit; cutting us off does nobody any favors and does no good to anyone and only prevents healing, or something to that effect.
But, at least in our opinion, that's too large a risk. It's too large a risk it's the other way around--that the harm caused from self-advocacy is harmful, showing a lack of empathy, showing a lack of understanding, showing a lack of having accepted and learned, demonstrating I am everything they didn't want to believe I could be, that the harmful content they saw from me is my truer self.
So, we aren't really entertaining her, and she's taunting us about it.
Basically she keeps saying things along the lines of,
"Everyone will regret their actions if you don't speak up about your thoughts."
Because, yeah.
I have had a lot of thoughts.
As selfish and self-centered and arrogant and narcissistic as it sounds. I've seen a lot of messages from the universe directed to those I've hurt which have basically said, "You're demonizing someone you shouldn't have. Learn to love them, and you will have a much healthier life." But, I don't want to assume. I don't want to intervene. It doesn't seem like it's my choice, my decision, to make. That I should have no part in their discovery, their journey, and that they need to realize it on their own.
And Danielle disagrees.
I've felt the people who cut me out of their lives are going to have regrets down the line for having done so--and Danielle is basically saying "that mistake is theirs to make, sucks to be them but you did what you could". Which, well, I could do more by trying Danielle's way, but I don't want to. Trying it my way, the way of understanding, of empathy, of healing, I am doing as much as I can to atone. I am trying my hardest to embody joy and positivity to uplift others and bring ripples of optimism into the world.
I'm trying to do the right thing always, including reducing harm and increasing healing. I removed the harmful blogs. I have changed my mindset. I have changed what I do with my actions. I've done as much as I can think of to do with my actions to embody being what I want to be, that force of good in the world.
Danielle is basically a voice telling me I should be blunt about this and be upfront about it. Say, "Hey. You will regret missing out on having me around when I have already changed. I have already undergone the growth you would want me to have. You will eventually see I've been this wonderful for this long and regret having cut me out and not having talked to me, not having approached me, and have remorse for having not seen the good in front of your eyes. I messed up, but you are in the process of messing up, and afterwards, you will face the same regrets I have, regretting what you did as I regretted what I did."
But...I can't accept that as an acceptable take, or viewpoint. Because that viewpoint would ignore their pain and ignore their suffering and the hurt they feel. That outlook would ignore their viewpoint, and discard their concerns, their worries, their caution. That viewpoint would discard their perspective. It would renew concerns about my character. It would affirm all viewpoints about my continued disregard of their lives, it would renew their fears I am a terrible person by showing them how selfish and entitled I am.
And they deserve their own agency, and deserve their time to heal, and deserve their time to decide things on their own. If they end up regretting what they did--well, then, I can console them by saying I'm an ~expert~ at regretting my past decisions. So, I can help them then and only then live with their decisions. Everyone is trying to do the right thing, and they are included in that. They have no ill will behind their actions. They did what they thought was right.
They acted the best they could, off of what information they have available, and I have no right to deem their actions wrong. I have no right to say they made a mistake. I have no right to judge them. I have no right to any negative perception of them because they are all wonderful people who are trying their best to do the right thing. They genuinely believed cutting me out was the right thing, and only time can judge if that was the right thing to do.
It's their life to live, not mine, so I have no say whatsoever. All I can really do is live my life the best I can. I know I messed up in the past. I know I made mistakes. I know those actions carry consequences to them, and people trying to do the right thing judged my actions had consequences and decided what those consequences were. That I am a better person now doesn't mean I should get a free pass for what I did before, and everyone gets a say in what's important to them.
If who I am now isn't enough to warrant me remaining in their lives given the extent of my past mistakes, then it isn't enough and that's valid and I need to respect that boundary.
I don't know what's the right thing to do, but I always have to try to do the right thing. And I want to be the one who can take the path of least harm and greatest good. I know I won't do perfectly, but I also have to trust myself in listening to what would be a mistake and what isn't a mistake.
Ignoring "this doesn't seem right..." is what got me in trouble in the first place. The whole drama kickstarting things involved a negative feedback loop/negative feedback spiral (it probably has an official term but I'm uneducated so I invented my own for this concept), where I ignored the voice saying it didn't seem right, and the result was longlasting widespread harm I could've stopped if I had listened to the voice back then.
I don't know how to do the right thing, often I'm unsure of what is a mistake and what's not, but I do know many wrong things to do. Listening to Danielle feels like it's the wrong thing to do, even if she makes valid points. No matter the validity of what she says, anything which violates the agency and independence and understanding and perspective of others, is only going to cause further harm with no good to come from it.
So, I gotta respect boundaries, I have to keep going and trying to pursue the right thing.
I think that I do need to leave behind at least some of my mentality from the last month, but that my mentality for the last month has been mostly in the right direction. I've been blogging rather continuously (mostly) since December 7th. In that time, my thoughts have been well-documented. If someone randomly stumbles into this blog but hasn't read those blogs, all I can really do is ask them:
Please read those.
Please don't judge me by any one individual blog, or strategically selected blogs.
Read a month's worth of blogs, in their whole, and see if something in any individual blog is an indicator of the whole.
I know, that's effort, and work. Especially given I'm verbose. When I designed this blog, I designed it to be about anything. Whatever I had on mind. And I also designed it knowing I am a writer. I exaggerate or downplay things. I also imperfectly express ideas. I can have a perfectly fine concept that works in one sentence and cause harm by having multiple paragraphs about it. (For instance, saying I have friends who are ride-or-die? Harmless! Explaining this concept in multiple paragraphs in a way devaluing non-ride-or-dies? Harmful!)
I can express things imperfectly, I can express things in ways that don't make sense without context, I can express things in exaggerated form, I can express thoughts I know aren't true from imposter syndrome, I can express alarm at intrusive thoughts, I can express frustration at dealing with internalized bigotry, etc. My blogs are often flawed, because I'm flawed.
But the whole is important and tells a different story than any individual blog would. In the last month, my perspective has been laid out bare fully exposed on this blog, albeit with redactions of my darkest most-suicidal impulses.
For full disclosure, I was in fact suicidal last month. I felt I could only cause harm. I felt everything I did only made things worse. That I was a terrible human only good for hurting people and increasing their pain. I felt nothing would ever make things better, and I just wanted out. I was in pain. I was hurting, but I felt I had no right to be in pain.
I was the one who hurt others, and their pain was the only thing important. I was the one who caused harm, so my feelings were irrelevant and pretending I mattered would be toxic and only cause further harm. I was the one who was in the wrong, who had done the hurtful things, so I had no place to be anything but remorseful and regretful. Actions have consequences, my actions carried consequences, and I had to accept those consequences.
The pain of others was the most important thing. The hurt I caused was the only thing important. Respecting others was a top priority. Their pain was the most important part. Their hurt was valid. Their perspective was valid. As far as they knew, I was a terrible person who confessed to being involved in something terrible and was remorseless and demonstrated no awareness or mindfulness of how horrific the ordeal was. Even if the truth was I was mortified by what I did, they had no way of knowing how horrified I am by my actions and thus they acted in the way appropriate.
They did the right thing, they are good people doing good things and they are in the right and they are protecting people from me. And that's valid. Everything they did was just, and their feelings are valid and real and important. Their decisions are to be respected, and they are right to have expressed what they have and to act as they did.
All of that and so much more.
My remorse is there. My regret is there. My acknowledgement I did wrong. What I did will haunt me for life. I will carry my wrongdoing with me for the rest of my existence, and it will eternally be there, a reminder of the harm I caused. And I need to atone for it. I need to do the right thing. I need to always be better than I was before.
Almost all of that, in the last month, still stands.
But, as much as Danielle scares me, I don't think demonizing me leads to any good. Those who would are valid for having done so. They're not wrong to do so. Their perspective matters, and is important, and if their perspective is I'm an irredeemable monster, it should be accepted and respected. But, while their viewpoint should be acknowledged and respected, it's okay to disagree with their viewpoint while still accepting its validity.
It's okay to acknowledge them and what they think, while disagreeing. My disagreement doesn't mean I will disrespect them. I can still see their perspective, know where they are coming from, acknowledge their validity, respect them and their actions from their perspective. I have to believe I am a demon/monster/whathaveyou to them...but I don't have to believe I am a monster myself.
I know, it's dangerous to believe I'm less flawed than I am. That's what got me into this mess in the first place. A belief I was in the right, when I was in the wrong, is what caused the harm in the first place. I know, it's a bad idea to have the arrogance to believe I am infallible. I know, it's best to take caution to avoid past mistakes, and that caution means acknowledging I have done wrong and the wrong I did was wrong enough to warrant consequences.
But, being overly critical of myself interferes with my ability to make a difference in the world and to atone and to redeem myself.
I need to believe there's more good in me than bad, and the good is the more important of the two, to generate the light I am looking to. I know there's those who would think I don't deserve that, or that I'm not. And they're valid. But while that viewpoint is good for them and productive for them, it's not productive for me.
There's a lot I can never change.
I can never change the past.
I can never change others.
But, I can change myself, as well as the future.
I will do more good in the world by being aware of my failings but not letting those failures define who I am.
And I hope that's acceptable to those who read this.
I'm not sure I can do good. But I'll certainly be trying. I hope that one day, that will be good enough.
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