You should probably skip this

    I've been having a really rough time lately. Life has managed to implode on me-everything that could go wrong has gone wrong and it's been hard for me to deal with. Even if I didn't have some problems normally, these past few months have been enough to break me, and they still could. I can see the surface, but I'm not out of the water yet..
     Anyway, in case you weren't aware, I am crazy.
 (Shocking, I know.)
     Today's ramble is really focused on mental illness, and how that feels for me, and it is deeply personal and heavy as fuck so it's probably not a good lunch time read-or a good read period. This is for me, more than anything.(And You of course. I know, I know-why don't I just pick up the phone and call and tell you that I need you. I can't. I'm sorry. Remember the part about the crazy?)
    Grammar is going to suck. Capitalization will be sporadic, there will be a lot of hyphens and commas and I will look back on this and cringe later-but it's important I put this out and public so that I feel accountable to someone.
    Yeah. Like I said.
     I feel this great, great pressure coming down on me.
    Yadda yadda.


    I have been diagnosed with a couple of things- MDD, BPD, GAD, lots of acronyms in my psych profile.

      Basically, they say that I get really sad ( hate myself and desperately want to stop existing) and really anxious (wear my teeth down to the nub and scratch down to the bone) and also I am really aggressive so when my self control isn't up to scratch I tend to inflict harm upon myself or others. I haven't been violent in a while and I'm really proud of that. Even in the depths of madness that I am finding myself in, I haven't hurt anyone, so cookies for me I guess. Fucking hell is the temptation strong though-there have been moments where the physical safety of someone in my presence depended on them getting the fuck away from me post haste. That I am not so proud of.
     Other times I've found myself dwelling on the terrible thoughts of throwing caution to the winds and just letting it out-hurting someone, killing them maybe. And for what? Being a shitty customer, standing too close, trying to talk to me when I want to be alone, letting me down when I really can't handle it...breathing the same air as me, sometimes. How dare them, right?
    Luckily, that doesn't last very long. The venom is fleeting. it burns out everything inside me for a few moments, my fight-or-flight response goes off and I feel it like a hood being pulled over my head, and as long as I can hold myself together for a short while, it goes away. I don't have the energy to keep that fire fueled nowadays. The sadness is worse.
    Anger stains you like smoke. It will hang about for a while, but the intensity subsides quickly and you adjust to it, make room for it in your senses so that you can concentrate on other things.

     Sadness is a typhoon. It sinks into the carpets and the drapes. It soaks through the baseboards and creeps up the walls, and before you realize it drips from everything you touch. You wake up one day soaked with it, and wonder at the curious quality it has of exhilarating you and exhausting you at the same time. Your thoughts feel sluggish and leave greasy trails as they track across your mind, yet your mind is racing. You feel the tide of this feeling build up inside of you and drown out every good thing you have ever felt. A voice starts speaking inside your head, one that sounds like you-that is you, steeped in grief.

        where are you going to live what are you going to do how will we eat can we make it through this can YOU make it through this OH GOD who is at the door who is calling you don't answer it what about the animals how will i get to work or to school i have a project due this week and a test and i haven't studied FUCK is this normal werewolf stuff or are you having a miscarriage what if this is getting worse what if it's going to kill you how are you going to make it through this week WHY CAN'T YOU FIX THIS who do you think you are you look so pathetic you need to work harder you need to make this better ANSWER YOUR DAMN PHONE you're just making everything worse we're too poor to deal with your fucking bullshit GET UP GETUP RIGHT FUCKING NOW get over yourself you have to FIX THIS what are we going to do how did this happen

    This inner voice starts to leak out into the real world. You mumble to yourself, repeating song lyrics or phrases from a poem that are horrible and hopeless and goddamn sad but they feel like psalms. You seek out every scrap of paper and you write-you desperately search for new words, new sentences to describe what is going on inside of you, hoping that when you find it, that perfect phrase, maybe you'll stop feeling like you're drowning. When you read these ramblings back to yourself, you see that you've just written the same thing over and over.
  yesterday upon the stair... 
   The margins are full of doodles of eyes half lidded and lips gushing dark water and you cross everything out.
    You don't sleep, because that damn voice, that record on repeat, won't give you a single second of peace. The longer you go without sleeping the worse it gets. You begin to feel pressure inside your head and behind your eyes, like you have too much blood in you maybe if you drill a hole that will go away your hands shake and you can't read or write anymore because your eyes quiver inside your head and concentrating on something makes tiny white dots dance inside of your eyes. It hurts to have your eyes open. it hurts to be awake.

    You still don't sleep.

    Everything feels like it is covered in a thin layer of sand-too much pressure and the sting of tiny cuts. You wonder if it's sleep deprivation or werewolves, gnawing on your nerve endings, breaking things that can't be fixed. It hurts to exist. Every time you breathe-a sharp pain in your back. Your muscles ache, because you are taut like piano wire. You jump at every sound, every movement, and your brain jars inside of your head. The pressure increases. You turn your head and lose your vision, and simple tasks like kneeling turn your blood to ice that throbs in your fingers.
    Your teeth hurt-you clench when you're stressed. The pain makes it hard to eat, but that's okay. Everything tastes cold and grey. After chewing, food sits in your mouth and congeals until the mere thought of swallowing is gag inducing.

    You still don't sleep.

    Now the voice inside your head gets angry.

    look at how stupid you are how many times have you had to count that row fucking idiot can't you do anything right look at that stupid fucking face and oh look your hair is all fucked up again you look horrible no wonder he's looking somewhere else who could look at that every day and not get a turned stomach even your cats won't look at you get up off your ass and do something you useless piece of shit no wonder nothing goes well for you oh look she's tearing up fucking shithead is gonna ugly cry all over the place SHUT THE FUCK UP NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR ANYTHING THAT YOU HAVE TO SAY 

    Every moment becomes a fight to exist. You think to yourself  "there's no way I can keep doing this. I can't handle it, too much for too long. If only I could lay down and be silent and still for a while".

     And you still don't sleep.

    You are full. Every second holds the possibility of curling up into a ball and never unfurling. You are constantly on the verge of tears. The voice has morphed into a stream of gibbering-no words anymore, just long high keening like a wounded animal. Sounds begin to itch in your ears like insects. You hold your hands to your temples, dig your nails in deep and press hard trying to release the pressure and nothing happens. Colors and smells bleed together until everything is grey, and ozone and coppery blood.
    This is when you start to talk to people. You tell them horrible things, personal things, everything. Your mouth runs without you and you tear yourself open in front of prying eyes. You tell them you hate them, and they laugh. You tell them you hate yourself and they laugh.
    You are apparently very funny.
    You tell them that you feel like an open wound, a nerve stripped raw and they offer you silly platitudes.You feel your heartbeat reverberate through your body, sending shocks like a live current.

    You still don't sleep.

    And then emptiness. You don't hear the voice anymore.

    Everything drains out of you, leaving you hollow. You would feel relieved, if you felt anything at all. You go through the motions of your day to day life-your voice sounds tinny to your own ears, your face feels stiff. There is no inner dialogue, no inner filter. Every thought, every impulse is acted out. People still think you are joking, and you no longer care. You step outside and stand in the sunshine and remember that doing so used to make you feel happy. You feel the sun's warmth and those memories of contentment move over the void inside of you and get sucked up. You feel it like a dying star, yawning deep and dark inside of you and swallowing up all of the things you're supposed to feel. You are not bothered by this. No bliss, no pain. Only one second at a time of disconnected interaction.

    You still don't sleep.

    And then the voice comes back, but it's not a part of you anymore. This whisper that used to harangue you night and day, lash you with your worries and your fears, now speaks only sporadically-and when it speaks it is cold and it comes from a far off place. It is softer, and lower, and you can barely hear it over the sound of your own heartbeat.

     It comes in quiet moments, when you're driving or at work, or doing dishes at home.
    'if you turn into that embankment, it would kill you'  it says, calm and nonchalant like asking about the weather. You tell it you're driving the wrong car for that, this one could run for a while yet.


    'you could stab yourself in the heart with that knife' it says. 'it would be tough to get past the sternum, but the blade is long enough' and also I hear it's going to rain  this weekend...


    'there's a razor blade in the back room.' 
    How rude. Who would leave a mess like that for a coworker to clean up.

    There's not outrage at this voice, no fear. It never tells you to do something, after all.
     Never insistent, just there.

    Congratulations-you have managed to undo millions of years of evolution. The number one drive of an organism is to stay alive. (Don't care.)
    You are meaningless.
    You feel the first semblance of tranquility you have had in days, maybe even weeks.


    Now you sleep, six or seven hours of fever dreams.


   When you wake up, the ride starts back at the beginning. Now you have a big whopping dose of fear to fuel your crazy fire.
      what if i get to that point again and the suggestion I get isn't too inconvenient what if i hurt myself life insurance policies won't pay out on suicide what would he do without me would anyone else miss me nah probably not i need to get some friends ha what a fucking joke like you can do that...
    Wind her up and watch her go.
    he wasn't there again today...


    You look up the suicide hotline and put it on speed dial.
     You wait, hope that was a one time thing.

     Of course it wasn't- you think you're that fucking lucky?
     Rinse and repeat, for months.



    Yes, I'm going to counseling. I'm back on my meds -again- and it will help. I've been around this block before. I know that therapy and chemicals will sort out all of this shit all up in my brain parts but I also know- and any therapist will tell you this- that it will get worse before it gets better.
 I don't know if I have that in me.
 It's a long fucking climb with no ropes and no supplies.


I don't know what to do anymore.

Thoughts.

So, I watched a good movie today. Shockingly it was a Jack Black movie, titled 'Bernie'. It's about an affable funeral director, the titular Bernie, who is a paragon of virtue and held in the highest esteem by the community.
This lovely man tries to befriend his polar opposite, the town's pariah. She's an eighty year old millionaire, and even her own family no longer speaks to her. She's racist, and bitter. One of her first scenes shows her attacking one of her gardeners with a broom when he tries to hand her the bill. Bernie brings her flowers after the death of her husband. He stops by daily to make sure she's handling her tragedy well.
She warms up to him. They start spending time together, a lot of time. Eventually, he's the closest human contact she has. Every second of his time becomes precious. She fights him when he leaves to direct the church choir. If he doesn't show up for their lunch dates two hours early, he's late. She tells him to switch to part-time at his job as a funeral director, she'll pay him to be her caretaker.
He does.
They start taking vacations together, traveling. Every trip is fraught with tension. He can't do anything right. He's forgotten her pills in the room, he should know she needs to take them before eating. He's off doing his own thing, she calls him and tells him he needs to leave NOW to pick up her dress from the dry cleaners.
She berates him constantly, picks at him over every action he takes.
Not good enough, how could you treat me like this. You're going to leave me like EVERYONE ELSE.
They get into an argument, and he tries to leave. She closes the gate to her estate so he can't drive out.
He kills her.
Shoots her in the back four times, and then cries over her dead body. He asks God to forgive him, asks what He wants him to do.
So he puts her in the freezer. He pretends that she's still alive. She's of a curmudgeonly sort, nobody questions why she isn't seen out in the community. Her children and grandchildren sued her years ago and they haven't spoken since. He tells everyone who asks that she had a stroke and she's in a care facility, but she doesn't want anyone to know because she thinks someone will try to assume control of her estate. He starts giving out money to anyone who asks for it. He donates 100,000 to the church. He pays off auto loans, mortgages. He funds a new business starting in town square.
Eventually he's found out. The DA brings him up on charges of first degree murder. And the town goes wild.
Every member of the town stops him, tells him he must be mistaken. That if they're on the jury, they'll vote to acquit. She was a bitch, she deserved to die.
And that's where this movie lost me; or hooked me, depending on how you look at it.
The funny thing is, this movie is based on a true story, and some of the actors aren't actually actors. They are residents of the real town that this happened in. It was a court case that made headlines, one of the first times a prosecution had to change jurisdictions in order to get a fair trial that wasn't in favor of the defendant.
Admittedly, I watched this movie because I was already familiar with this case. I knew that she was a mean woman and he was a nice man, that he killed her and went to jail. I didn't know that hundreds of people protested and rallied to protect a known and admitted murderer because the victim was someone they didn't like very much.
The writers and the director did a good job, and they chose good actors. Bernie is very likable and sympathetic, and Margi (the old woman) is completely wretched. Shirley Maclaine did a great job of portraying someone who is terrible because she has no reason not to be. You can see in her character someone who has always had money to throw at her problems. The relationship between her and Bernie was a classic case of psychological abuse. As soon as she saw how soft he was, how easy to rip into, she started in hard. She lured him in with honey and then turned it into boiling tar, hoping that if she was callous and mean enough she would drive him away, and sleep soundly at night knowing that she was right all along. Everybody always leaves, and she shouldn't feel bad about her behavior. Everyone ultimately deserves it, because everyone always follows the script she's written out for them in her head.
Nobody loves her, they're always after her money. Nobody cares about her, not really. if they can't handle the worst she can give them then they don't actually love her, and they never did.

 I take a moment to mention that I fucking despise that fake Marilyn Monroe quote. 'You won't be my personal emotional punching bag? UGH YOU JUST CAN'T HANDLE HOW REAL I AM.

I liked this movie, I did. It's so easy to demonize violent criminals. Bernie Tiede, who did actually pick up a gun and murder a woman who had been emotionally abusing him, is a real person who experienced a full range of human emotions. He hurt when she insulted him. He felt trapped when she told him that he hated her like all the others. He felt responsible for the entirety of someone else's happiness when he didn't want to.
And then he fucking shot her.
This wasn't the same as spousal abuse cases. He had his own home that he slept in at night. He was financially independent. He had a vast network of support, and this woman was no threat to him. She was an eighty year old hermit with no social standing. The worst thing she could have done was be spiteful from a distance.
He killed a woman for being mean. An entire town revolted against justice because she was mean. They had to use a change of venue in an entirely unprecedented way in order to make this man pay for the crime he ABSOLUTELY committed, because an old woman was mean.

I feel like the movie was trying to make me feel the miscarriage of justice that obviously happened here, but I don't feel it.
She was a right old cunt. Seriously, even the hourly crime special I saw on the case took a lot of time to explain that. I get it.
That doesn't mean that Bernie Tiede had the right to murder her.
There are people like Margi in the world, people who hate themselves so much that they can't accept friendship or kindness from other people. They wear on you every second they're near you, like a sentient drizzle. Pissing all over everything and everyone just because they don't know how else to exist.
You don't have to spend your time with these people. Really, you don't. It doesn't matter how lonely they are, or how much history you have, or how sorry you feel for them.
Taking on the emotional well-being for another human being is a huge responsibility, and you don't have to do that for someone who sucks you dry. Sadness isn't an excuse for being terrible to the people around you.
People like Margi do 'get what's coming to them'. They die alone and unhappy, like they always knew they would. No action on your part is required.

Werewolves.

    I like to think that I have a pretty good pain threshold. It's not often that something hurts too much for me to deal with, but every couple of months, that pesky condition I have crops up and beats the shit out of me.

    I have a standard level of pain that I deal with every day. My hands, as they deteriorate further, are usually the biggest daily toil. Easy to deal with, however. I know that I can't open jars or give firm handshakes, and I've dealt with the fact that I will drop fifty percent of all things that I pick up.  I fucking hate that of course, I miss my dexterity. I can handle it, though.

    What I can't handle, however, is twelve to fourteen hours of feeling like my insides are being ripped out with a red-hot poker. I play a game with the animal savaging me inside, trying to fight down enough painkillers to put me to sleep before I'm forced to throw up everything in my stomach again. At least three or four times a year, I am right on the verge of killing myself, taking that ten too many pills and never waking up again. Not on purpose, mostly, although I've certainly contemplated it. Since I already feel like I'm dying, killing myself presents itself as an easy alternative.

 I cannot walk when this is happening, I have to crawl on my hands and knees, the dizziness is so severe.  After eight hours or so of the intense muscle spasms, I don't even have the energy to writhe in pain anymore. I just lay there and stare glassy eyed at the ceiling as my organs rearrange themselves into new and horrific shapes, trembling, sometimes praying, telling whatever deity will listen that I would do anything to just make this stop.

    So that's been my day. No energy left for the witty ending line. 

    

    

A forced perspective on relationships, and a small stroll through already discussed topics.

Since my customer service mask is firmly in place before I arrive at work, various coworkers and regular customers have come to the vexing conclusion that I am capable of, and inclined to, give advice on romantic mishaps.
    I can't even begin to describe how irritating I find this to be, but I digress. This maddening situation did inspire a blog post, after all. Anyway, let's get to it before the spite turns this into an angry diatribe on the gall of people.
    So, related to a previous post, we all have a list of attributes that we deem necessary in order to invest in a relationship with someone. We make our own lists with our own criteria, and we get to decide when and how we score it. Yada yada yada. Check the Nice Guys post if you need a refresher. What I'm talking about today is after the scoring, when we enter into what I shall call the Contract. Whatever your particular provisions may be, the essence of the contract is the same for every relationship.
    I will give to you, Relationship Applicant, my time and emotional support so long as you give me your time and emotional support in return. Pretty basic, one size fits all. Both parties have the right to terminate the Contract, at any time and for any conceivable reason. What you do not have is the right to terminate and then still expect the other party to fulfill their end of the bargain. That, ladies and gentleman, is one surefire way to make me call you a selfish asshole. Loudly and publicly, and boy, does my voice carry.
    If you are unsatisfied with a friend or partner, then do whatever you need to do to fulfill your needs.           Renegotiate your terms, terminate, even bitch endlessly while doing nothing. Whatever. Deal with it. I will never advocate staying with someone you don't want to be with. What's the point of freedom of choice if you can't exercise it? But once you have terminated, that is it. This person now owes you nothing, regardless of which end of the termination you may have been on. Any culpability you may have for someone ends as soon as the relationship does. Whatever you give them beyond the breaking point is emotional largesse.
    Maybe this is a capability that only the overly pragmatic person has, but when someone tells me they no longer want to be my friend or lover, I take them at their word. I assume that if there was something I could do to fix the relationship, they would have brought it up before that point. Breaking up, to me, is absolutely literal. Our relationship is broken, and I am not required to fix it. I can certainly try if I am so inclined, but I have been relieved of duty. Any further action is on my own time, and by my own choice.
    Termination is not a form of punishment, either. If you are breaking up with someone, or ending whatever relationship you have, and you are doing this in the hopes that you will scare them into doing whatever it is that you want them to do without any attempt at negotiation on their part, then that is flat out abuse. If you crack open a psychology textbook and look for the definition of emotional abuse, you will find a picture of your asshole face, looking out all asshole-like.
    I hate bullies. I always have, and likely always will. When I see manipulative, emotionally damaging behavior, I can't help but to call it out. Breaking up with your partner in an attempt to control them is bullying. Threatening isolation and eviction  from a peer group to make someone comply with whacked out wishes? Also bullying. I don't much care what super secret motivation one may have for acting in this way. I don't really give a flying fuck about feelings in general. The emotions of others are never, ever my business, not even with my husband or my best friend. Anything ever shared with me, feelings wise, is just insight into an action that has already taken place, and I measure the worth of a person based upon their actions. It may soften my heart a little to know that you act the bully now because you were the bullied way back when, but the behavior itself is unacceptable. I myself have worn that mantle, I'm ashamed to admit, but I don't believe it is somehow excused by the fact that I've been on the receiving end more often.
If you have the ability to be better and you aren't, that's what I see.


(It looks as though i went too long and it did turn into an angry diatribe after all. Oh well. Magic edit button is my favorite.)

Hmmph.

Another paper, this time for American Civilization. Topic is 'How would you fix America?'

I believe one of the biggest issues facing us today in America is what we are taught both inside and outside of the classroom. My problem isn’t necessarily with the organization of the public school system, although I do know that there is room for improvement there. I worry more about the content of the lessons that we are taught as children, the lessons that we then take and pass on to our own children.  The overarching problem that I see when I witness our society’s failings, the common theme, is our interpretation of power.

            This message that pervades every facet of our lives is the reason behind a few of the most unsavory elements of our American culture. Racism, sexism and any other ‘ism’ you can think of all stem from it. Human beings as a whole are incredibly insecure creatures. The majority of our lives are spent attempting to carve out our little piece of the world, trying to find and flaunt our own power. The problem with Americans specifically is what our idea of power is. From the moment we are capable of understanding words, we are drilled with the idea that power is something that is taken from others, and it is shown by exerting it over others.

The sociological definition of power is literally that. “Power is the ability one has to make others do what they want.”  If your business makes more money, or you have the right skin color and genitalia, then you are a step higher on the social ladder and you have the right to use that leverage over others. The KKK member doesn’t believe that the color of his skin makes him superior based on any kind of evidence. He believes it because he feels powerless, and denouncing a large percent of the population based upon physical attributes gives him a sense of superiority that he doesn’t know how to gain elsewhere.

Cutthroat capitalism is centered around this ideology. The definition of a successful business in the good old US of A is different than in other places. Breaking even or meting out a meager profit margin isn’t success. Multimillion dollar CEO bonuses and stocks topping out the DOW define success here. Unfortunately for the majority of the population, the best way to reach the end of that rainbow is to marginalize hourly employees, and to cut corners with safety and product.

 Ensuring a hostile work environment for all but the highest ranking employees means high turnover and a low rate of raises, a system that has served giants like McDonalds and Walmart incredibly well. Since corporate entities operate in this manner, American society is filled with people who feel the machinations of power being exerted over us, and also feel stripped of all ability to fight against it. Join a union and get yourself fired. Fight for better pay and benefits, become so stigmatized that no company will hire you. 

The natural reaction to a feeling of powerlessness in a society that teaches us to relish it above all other things is, of course, crime. The crime rate in America is one of the highest in the world. Whether it is vehicular theft or assault and battery, a criminal act is used to assert agency and claim power, even if that power is as small a thing as not starving to death this week.

 Men especially are susceptible to deviation because of this lesson. The idea of machismo, its effect on crime rates and the effect it has on society as a whole is astonishing. It’s no coincidence that the more rigid the idea of gender roles are in a given area, the higher the violent crime rates are. In this country, 86% of violent crimes are committed by men, and 53% of those men are between the ages of 15 and 29, an age range when they are under the most societal pressure.

Once a young boy hits the age of sexual virility, overbearing masculinity stops being something they are being taught how to achieve and turns into something that he should have and display at every opportunity. Pattern predators are even categorized based upon whether they are seeking or exerting this elusive thing. A perpetrator of violent crime is either Power Reassurant/Anger Retaliatory or Power Assertive/Anger Excitatatory.  The media does no one any favors by spreading the message that such acts will gain you notoriety and attention. Every time a news anchor gives the name of a killer and not their victims, they put them above the victims, and they teach anyone watching who is seeking their own slice of power that there is a quick and easy way to attain it. This glorification of offenders, descriptions of intelligent snake charmers who masterfully evade police, of alpha wolves hunting sheep, assures the continuation of such instances. It is also not a coincidence that one mass shooting hitting the media assures more shortly after. 

In order to fix this, we have to burn it down and start from scratch, figuratively speaking. There’s nothing inherently wrong with teaching people to be powerful. We will, after all, seek out such a feeling ourselves without any sort of guidance. What we need to do is change the perception of what power means, and how one attains it. Schools, parents, magazines and news outlets need to stop perpetuating a bad message. 

A CEO using money denied to his underlings to buy a yacht isn’t powerful, he is an asshole. The union representative fighting for a living wage and the ability to stay home from work when you have a broken leg is the one with power. Serial killers and spree killers aren’t powerful. Someone who has those same impulses and seeks out help is.  Power isn’t something that you gain, or even that you can take. It is something that you build up inside of you, and you do that by resisting selfish impulses, controlling yourself and trying to make the world better for having you in it. A country of people who are the captains of their own souls is a country that has no limits.

Ramble ramble responsibility ramble. Also, I hate myself a little today.

   If there is no other good thing to be said about me, and it's possible that there isn't based upon the large amount of people who vehemently dislike me, then it is this. I am well aware of my shortcomings.
   My ego walks through a door ten minutes before I do, at least when it comes to my intelligence.
 I am so bad at social interaction that I can't even tell anymore when I'm being rude or overly sarcastic. I don't care about people. "Oh, you and so-and-so are about to have your one month anniversary? That information is absolutely meaningless to me and I have no idea how you would like me to respond."
 I have a hard time faking conviviality beyond my limited repertoire of scripted and rehearsed subjects of small talk.
 I am utterly lacking in tact, and terrible at lying to make up for it. I can't even manage the harmless white lies that polite society runs on.
 I am argumentative, and hard headed, and I reach compromises only with the begrudging contempt usually only seen in small children.
 I am not now, and have never been, a nice person.
Nor do I really aim to be. There is a difference between being nice and being good, but that is a conversation for some other day.
   Despite all these things, I consider myself to have one other good quality. I have an almost obsessive need to admit when I have done wrong, even when it is to my own detriment. I believe very ardently in personal responsibility.
  Every choice that I have made, whether good or bad, has been completely my own. There is no evil twin, or devil on my shoulder that urges me to do some of the shitty things that I do. The me of the past is the me that sits here today. I am still violent and capricious. I am still manipulative and scornful. The only difference between then and now is that I control these parts of myself better now than I did then.
  There isn't a secret piece of me that is benevolent and virtuous, kept locked away by the darker aspects of myself. I am the sum of all of my actions, and I cannot discount the bad ones in order to make a better overall picture. Even when my decisions have been born of opposition, being justified isn't the same thing as being right. Good intentions are not magic spells, absolving you of the consequences of your misdeeds.
 I was responsible for those decisions then, I am responsible for them now, and I will be responsible for them until the day that I die. If I was drunk when I did something terrible, I still did something terrible. If I lashed out because of systematic abuse or antagonism, I still did something terrible. If I manipulated a situation in order to meet my own ends at the expense of other people, I still did something terrible.
   My 'recovery', so to speak, is based upon looking at myself in the mirror every day and weighing my soul against a feather, metaphorically speaking. I look at my actions and I ask myself if the person that I want to be would do the things that I do.
 I've come a long way. A lot of the time, the answer to that question is yes, and I get to feel the satisfaction of living up to my own standards, one of the best feelings in the world.
 However, there are those times when the answer is no. I don't know what law of the universe dictates that the weight of mistakes is thrice that of any satisfaction, but there are a few failures haunting me currently, staring at me from the mirror and waiting to be properly addressed. I have apologies to make that I don't think I have the stomach for, and I feel that they will be seen as yet another wrongdoing when I do get around to them.
  I'm having a hard time with my reflection at the moment. I see the strides that I have taken and my continuing progress, but still I don't know if I like who I'm looking at right now.


I guess I can add another bullet point to my list of shortcomings.
Extremely melodramatic.

Feedback?

Posting a paper I wrote for class. Do you have any critiques or comments? ( Am I the only one who thinks that blogs are perfect for beta-editing?)

    Our society, and many others worldwide, perpetuate the institution that is rape culture. There are many reasons that such an abhorrent social structure has continued to thrive, even in the face of broadening enlightenment about the widespread damage that rape and sexual assault cause. Our media is inundated with flawed perceptions heavily influenced by rape culture. Movies, magazines, books and even educational programs trivialize the ordeal of victims by portraying it as a desirable sexual act, and our opinions change as these messages are broadcast.

    We as a society allow sexual predators the ability to assault with impunity, by excusing rapists, by putting the onus on the victim to prevent their own victimization, and by refusing to reinforce our sexual education to dispel the myths surrounding assault and sexual predators. (I want to take a moment to lay out a disclaimer; I have a tendency to refer to victims as 'she' or 'her', and perpetrators as 'he' or 'him'. I do not do this to demean the experience of non female victims, or to insinuate that men are the only ones that rape, only to allow the flow of the dialogue to go uninterrupted, and as an attempt to keep this to only two pages. I will most likely go over that anyway, but alas, I am pretentious and long winded.) Feminist theory says that these behaviors stem from the subjugation of women, but I also believe that conflict and critical theory play a large part. The fact that our society has decided that men, and white men in particular, are the highest power has created an atmosphere where bodily autonomy is viewed as a myth, or as something that you are expected to surrender. Sex is a good that women can only hold and that exists to be taken from them.

    In popular media, the spectrum of sexual offenses is narrowed down to one specific definition; 'real' rape is the blushing virgin maiden who is attacked while out picking blueberries in the orchard. Any variance of that theme is rejected and labeled as something else. This happens for a variety of reasons, mostly because nobody wants to believe that they know a rapist, although the statistical data makes it overwhelmingly likely. We wish to think that we are good judges of character and that nobody we like or socialize with regularly could be a sexual predator. When someone demonstrates this behavior, we allow it and pardon it, telling ourselves that REAL predators wear long black capes and will make sure to give us the telltale mustache twirl before they savage us. When presented with claims that one near and dear to us is a rapist, the average response is to reject it out of hand.

    Of course the high school quarterback didn't rape anyone, he is such a nice boy. That mother could never have molested her children, she sold cookies at the school bake sale. I don't see a third teat on her anywhere, and we all know that rapists have a third teat. Even when presented with irrefutable evidence, we bend over backwards in an attempt to accommodate. Poor dear didn't know any better than to force themselves on an unconscious person, how can they say no when they're unconscious? That's not 'real' rape. Oh, your ex-boyfriend assaulted you? Well, you two were in a relationship three years ago. How could he possibly comprehend that your sexual relationship was also over and that you weren't just playing hard to get? That's not 'real' rape either.

    This desire to demonize the offender blinds us. A large amount of assaults are never officially reported based on the accurate assumption that the victim will not be believed. One of the most prominent ways we reinforce rape culture is by the widespread victim blaming. We excuse and condone a rapists behaviour by telling a victim she was asking for it. We ask where you were, who were you with, how much you've had to drink, what you were wearing, and every time we do this we give rapists a checklist of attributes to search for when seeking out their victims. When they go after an intoxicated woman wearing a little black dress, the public at large will act as their defense lawyers, free of charge.

    This pervading belief that there is some secret handshake one can master in order to prevent a sexual assault is insulting, and doubly so since it does a disservice to both genders. These messages wouldn't be so insidious if it weren't for the fact that they are widely believed. I can't tell you how many times I have heard someone say 'that's just how things are', as though sexual assault is a meteorological phenomena. "Best bring your chastity belt, it's looking mighty rapey today." These messages are so ingrained in us that most don't even question them. Women shouldn't dare to be a woman in public, obviously every man turns into a boner werewolf at the slightest provocation.

    Nowhere is the element of subjugation more evident than in the education we give women. We tell them to stay inside, to bring an escort, instead of teaching them how to protect themselves. I can't count the times that I've been cautioned not to fight back against an attacker, lest I get myself killed. We teach girls that they need to say no in exactly the right manner, firm and unyielding but never ever mean; just because someone is exhibiting predatory behaviours doesn't mean we should make them feel bad about themselves.

    The act of rape prevention is entirely upon your shoulders, but don't you dare exhibit yourself in a way that we might consider unfeminine while you do it. Nobody likes it when you're over dramatic. We also tell men that they are not men unless they are chasing tail, that they shouldn't take no for an answer, that the best way to demonstrate their manhood is by exerting their power over others. We tell them that they are naturally sexually aggressive, that there is no other way.