Being Self Centered

 I spent most of my life, growing up and a good size chunk of my, alleged, adulthood being Self Centered. And being totally unaware that I was self centered. I really thought that I was a good guy who cared about others and was giving.

Alas, I was mistaken.

Many years later I began a program of recovery from addiction. I started working the 12 Steps of Recovery as practiced in Narcotics Anonymous. And I began to get really uncomfortable.

What the 12 Steps did, and still do, is peel away the fantasy of who I thought my self to be and introduced me to who I really am.

What I found was totally at odds with the picture that I had built up, IE carefully crafted, of myself.

And I began to see my total self centeredness.

So let us define what it is we are talking about. Thanks to dictionary.com we can do this.

Self Centered:

adjective

1. concerned solely or chiefly with one's own interests, welfare, etc.; engrossed in self; selfish; egotistical.
2. independent, self-sufficient.
3. centered in oneself or itself.
4. Archaic. fixed; unchanging.

For this context I think that definitions 1 and 3, with 4 being definitely a part of it, are most apropos. And definition 2 has no bearing at all. Although I convinced myself that it did.

Another way of saying that I am being self centered is two wonderful phrases from the recovery world, "It's all about meee", and "I may not be much but I'm all that I think about".

So, now it is time to talk about the way that this showed up in  my life. And there were many. I have uncovered a lot of them over the years. And, more is being revealed. Always.

The first way that I can see that it showed up was as Running Away. I could not be counted on for anything. I could not stand for anything so if it even seemed possible that there might be any sort of emotional or physical type of context I could not hang. I ran away.

Manipulation. I was constantly trying to make situations turn out the way that I thought they should be. Usually some way that would be "helpful" to me. And if the outcome I wanted was not beneficial to someone else that was just too darn bad.

Gaslighting. I was real good at that. I would take any criticism and turn it back on the person who was giving it until I had them reeling. Unknown to me at the time, every accusation of others was a disguised confession of my own.

Doing what I wanted no matter what other people wanted. It could be as simple as calling you something that I wanted to call you, no matter what you wanted and said, to getting the things that I thought you should have with your money instead of what you wanted me to get, I always "knew" better of course and it was for your own good, to disappearing out of your life when you were counting on me for something, etc...

There is more. And I think that you get the idea. I was Always all about me.

What is really wild is that I am no longer comfortable at all with Being Self Centered or being around Self Centered people. It just drives me nuts.

A few days ago a family member was visiting. Now this person is extremely self centered. And, I am sure, does not believe themselves to be. And, to be very clear, this person is not a bad person. Have they made mistakes? Yes. Just as I and every other human alive has. This person's mistakes are compounded by a Self Centered steak a mile wide which does not allow them to see the mistake and to take no responsibility for this as there is, in their world, nothing to be responsible for.

What brought it to a head was this person's talking about, and rationalizing, this person's refusal to call another relative by their chosen name. FYI, this is not a Trans thing. The refusal and the rationalization both just screamed "It's all about me".

And, when I tried to point out that this was no way to fix an already troubled relationship, troubled most especially by this very issue, it got met by a stone wall.

I shut up about it.

And it stayed right there between us.

Now, again, this is not about my relative. This is not trying to paint someone as bad. We are all human.

So I started writing this. And I am writing this because there are several things that I see about  MY SELF in this that I want to share. I live in a world of "If ya spot it ya got it", or "One can only see that part of another that one has within them selves".

This disturbed me on several different levels for many different reasons:

1. I have done enough work on myself that I know the damage that I left in my wake thru my self centered actions and behaviors. There is no way that I can live the lie that I am not hurting anyone. And I know the damages this relative is leaving in their wake as well. I have relationships that will never recover from my self centered actions and behaviors. And so does this relative.
2. I have done enough work on myself to know the damage that I did to myself thru my self centered actions and behaviors. It has taken years to repair that internal damage to myself and, the truth is, it will never be completely healed. Like a physical wound, there will always be a scar.
3. I have done enough work on myself that I know I am still capable of every bit of that self centered action and behavior. All I have to do is have a bad moment, allow emotions to overcome me, or any of a dozen plus things, and I am just as capable of being a self centered person as this relative. I did not conquer it. I have learned how to not be it. And it still, sometimes, takes work.

Now to be clear, Being Self Centered and Being Narcissistic are two different things. Self Centered one can stop and become different and heal. Narcissistic is not able to change ever. At least I have never heard of it being possible.

So why do people become Self Centered? It is, in my view and experience, a massive Trauma Response. Somewhere, usually as a child, the world hurt you in a way that caused a wound so deep it was deemed unhealable by the wounded one. So, for self protection, they began to protect themselves from being hurt. And the hurt was so ingrained they could not even see it anymore, yet they saw the world thru that hurt. And everything in life was judged thru that hurt in order to see how it was going to hurt them and could they deflect or evade or minimize that hurt to any degree.

So everything around them Truly became "All about me".

And the thing those of us who are self centered miss is that by facing that massive thing that we are afraid to face, by walking thru that thing and healing, that is the only way that we will know Peace and Freedom.

And Love. And Relationship.

And, in my experience, we are so scarred and hurt by that hurt, the amount of pain we see we must endure to get thru it, we are afraid and cannot. So we stay stuck. Until we hit a bottom of some sort or die.

And that makes me very, very, sad.

Because, having made that journey myself, and continuing that journey still, I can tell you that there is so much Peace, Freedom, Love, Joy, and Relationship, on the other side of your hurt that it is so well worth momentary discomfort one feels while walking thru it.

This I know to be true.

So my friends, in what place are you self centered? What is the hurt behind that place? Will you be brave for just a moment and go on a journey of healing? Will you allow yourself to trade the hell that you know for a paradise that you do not?

Will you?

Love. It is the only rational act 💖