Why Are You Doing This To Me?

 As a child growing up I always felt different. Not like other people. Not even the members of my family. I became a very solitary child. And yet, I always craved people. What a dichotomy.

And, as a child who grew up in an addicted household, there were a lot of things going on in my home that no child should have to experience. So I learned how to be a victim.

It took me a long time to admit that I had also been a perpetrator. I had done what I had learned. I had hurt people. This is not an excuse. This is a statement of what is so.

For years I played the victim. Had not the ability to see that A) Bad things were happening to everyone in my family at one time or another and B) I was not the worst off human being on the planet. and C) I had also done the bad things that I learned.

For many years I went through my life in a haze. Anger, Resentment, Shame, Guilt, etc, all stuffed down and away with a lot of really destructive Actions, Attitudes, and Behaviors.

And then one day I began to wake up. It is a real process. It has involved a lot of things with a lot of different people and the process is still ongoing. It is a lifetime process. The day I graduate is the day they schedule the funeral. Because, for me, the only time I am done is when I pass from this life to whatever is next.

And during this process I made several (Thousand😇) discoverys

• As long as I am a victim in life I have no power at all in my life. All the things that I am unhappy about I can do nothing with. I am a VICTIM. It is not my fault. There is nothing for me to do.
• As long as I am a victim everything I do is on repeat. The ways that I justify it not being my fault, the ways that I blame others for everything, the ways that I shuck any responsibility, etc, are all repeating over and over again. And, while the names and faces change, the people stay the same as well. And actions leading to results are all repeating. My whole life is on repeat.
• As long as I am a victim I am fixated on (Obsessed with) things. I am fixated on Blame, Hate, and Anger. I can get fixated on people, places, things music, books, etc, anything that will take me away from my self. What I am fixated on may change. The fact that I am fixated (Obsessed) does not.

So there I am with everything in my life that I think sucks on repeat. And it keeps going even though I am trying to do things differently. And I am discovering some other things as well.

• Until I am Responsible for my Life, all of it, then I am not doing anything differently. I am doing the equivalent to putting lipstick on a pig and calling it Miss America. Nothing has truly changed, I have just dressed up the outside.
• I had to learn what is mine to own and what is not. I am NOT responsible for what others do to me. I AM responsible for how I choose to react/respond to this. In my past, and sometimes today, I have had that backwards. I "made" you do the things you did, and had "no control" over my reaction to it.
• Until I learned to be Responsible for my reaction/response I was a victim.

And that is my Life right there. For in every moment I have a choice. How am I going to behave in this moment? Am I going to be a Victim or a Human? Am I going to React or Respond? Will I be on an automatic pilot playing out the same scenarios over again or am I going to be an Adult and choose the most appropriate response for this moment?

For most of my life I was a Reactionary. Something happened and an auto response would be triggered. No thinking, no reflection, no input from me at all.

I still can be reactionary at times. I have gotten better at putting a stop to that when it does happen. And making sure that it does not begin in the first place. A lot more times than not these days I am actually an adult in any given situation. (Don't tell anyone 😈 I have a reputation to maintain)

So today I no longer get to cry out "Why are you doing this to me"? Today I can ask that question, if you are indeed doing something that is not beneficial to me and/or is harmful. I do not get to cry about it. I do get to stop you from doing what you are doing. I no longer get to blame you for how I react/respond to what you are doing.

I guess, despite all of my best efforts, I have grown up some. Not over rated after all 😂

So my friends, Live Long and Prosper. (The proper response is "Peace and Long Life")