I was somewhere around seven years old when I first conceptualized myself as a “wrongdoer” (or whatever word you would like to use that is the opposite of a victim). My dad had me lifted on his shoulders while we were walking away from one of my soccer games. For some reason, before that day, I had never realized the massive scar that my dad had on the back of his head. I, not really knowing what it was, poked at it. My dad abruptly jumped which scared me for a second, but then he started to laugh telling me he was just joking. I asked him what the mark on his head was from and he told me. It was a scar from a baseball bat given by people that were victims of their own circumstances. That conversation opened the can of worms that led my dad to tell me all about his childhood.
After our conversation (with no intention of his own), the only thing that I felt was guilt. My dad told me of his humble and unstable beginnings. Of his underfunded schools and lack of direction. He told me about just how much he was willing to take in order to have children whose childhoods wouldn’t look like his own.
His family had never owned anything, but I was born into a family with a house. His father was never there, and at that time, I couldn’t get mine to leave me alone. His schools were inadequate, while mine were some of the best in the city. He struggled to keep his life away from his neighbors, yet mine were my best friends. All the things I had worried and complained about suddenly seemed so insignificant. I couldn’t stop thinking that he would have killed to be in my position at that age, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it ever since.
I’m not going to sit here and act like I grew up living a lavish lifestyle by any means, but the resources that my parents were able to give me were much more than they had and more than enough for me to create my own path. I think this is the core of why I’m 22 years old and I still feel like shit about my journey.
These words may seem like self-pity, but that doesn’t even make sense. Why? Because I’m not the victim. I’m not the one who was born into constant adversity. I’m not the one who went to underfunded schools or hung out with shady friends. I didn’t deal with that, so it feels like I have no right to speak.
The true repercussions of my confusion showed up in my early teenage years. To put it nicely, I became a brat. I became entitled and demanding of myself and others. Between the ages of 12 and 15, I felt that I had no excuses and was entitled to everything; which brought a lot of success, but also a lot of insecurity, and arrogance, which caused those around me a lot of pain.
So, what? I just become an insecure, arrogant, asshole for the rest of my life? I didn’t realize this until now, but that is a very real possibility. Many people live their lives having created a false reality at age 15 and they’re never able to shake that from their psyche. For me personally, that’s a terrifying thought.
Read this slowly if you need to because I don’t really know what I’m trying to say. The only thing I do know is that I don’t know what to do. Have you ever thought of something you’ve done in your past that is cringey? Take it a step further and think about the things that you’ve done that were downright wrong. For me, those (numerous) things that I did replay in my mind all the time. They build this sort of asylum in my head that makes it so whenever I look in the mirror, I only see who I was. I’ve apologized, but what is an apology when you haven’t found a way to forgive yourself. I can’t shake this. I’ve grown. I’m not who I was then, but for some reason, I can’t shake it. I don’t know whether to beg someone to answer the question of how to remain calm with that, or if it's only within myself to let it go, but regardless something has to change.
In our world today, even if the thought process that I have exists, you get “canceled.” For some, that is on a massive international scale, but for most that could be at your school, in your community, or even in your family. We talk to other people about something someone did at one point in their life and act like life hasn’t happened in between. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that people who need help shouldn’t get it (what that entails is relative to the victim, wrongdoer, and/or their community), but what I am saying is that when I look in the mirror, I see someone who isn’t really there. I’m saying that I’d be shocked if you don’t do the same thing. What I’m saying is that we choose to identify only with when we were wronged (and identify with others who were wronged), and we forget how the pendulum once was the other way too. This gives us a license to judge, be rude, and incite fear which only takes us away from our own development.
Don’t read this incorrectly. Trauma is very real and I empathize with people who have gone through traumatic experiences and encourage them to take all the time and help they need. All I am saying is that we have created this space where the only time when people have a right to speak is when they feel like they have been wronged. It’s been so bad for me that I have even looked into reasons why I was wronged by someone or something even though I was completely unaware of the issue before my curiosity. What this space has created is people only listening/learning from the loudest, most extreme voices and sacrificing our individual ability to think in order to be in accordance with thoughts and ideas that we don’t truly understand or believe in. The way we go about using a moment in time to conceptualize ourselves and others' lives is dangerous, limiting, and wrong. It’s dangerous to look at people and not see growing, changing, loving, imperfect individuals, and only see victim or wrongdoer. It’s even more dangerous (as I have been dealing with for some time now) to look at yourself and only see yourself in the context of victim or wrongdoer.
I think this blog post is both an apology letter and a question. I am apologizing to the universe and the individuals who I have wronged in my life. Most of my wrongdoings were a product of ignorance, insecurity, and arrogance, and if I could take those words and actions back I would. I would also like to apologize to those that I have harshly judged for their wrongdoings towards me and others in the past. People can grow and change, and I hope you have found the ability to forgive yourself knowing that I am trying to figure out a way to do the same thing. The question I am asking is where do we go from here? I have said my individual apologies and I have voiced my forgiveness, but something inside of me still holds on to my past self.
I know this doesn‘t give the psychology-based answers that I normally give, but what I will say is that feelings about our past selves are difficult, especially when we have no idea how to navigate them. Look at our country, if that isn’t an example of people not knowing how to understand their past and not be haunted by it, I don’t know what is. Somehow, someway we need to learn how to not only give people space to grow but understand how to live life with what is. Victim or not, we are all responsible for how we move forward. Holding on to our own past as well as others’ pasts too tightly is something that will always stop us from achieving the peace and love that we all deserve. I don’t really know how to do so (and would love your help), but once we figure it out, we can get one step closer to taking back our humanity.
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