I am a victim. I behave like a victim. One aspect of that is turning the victimization in on oneself. Those feelings have to go somewhere. You try not to let them loose on others, so who’s left but your little self?

Maybe that is one odd thing we are never taught – how to release all those pent up feelings of hurt and frustration. It doesn’t fit very neatly into society. You almost have to reinvent society to fit your needs. It’s kind of like starting from scratch. You wake up and you say, “I am not going to continue following this path that is so ill-suited to my own happiness. But since this is the path laid out before me, I’m going to have to step off into the abyss and take this one moment as if I am a newborn baby. I shall be absolutely clueless as to how things are arranged in this world and how I’m expected to act. And just do this moment by moment until I find I am forging a brand new path.” That is the precise opposite of a victim – one who determines his own destiny. It is also the opposite of a victimizer/abuser. Neither sides of that particular coin are making choices of their own. Their lives are waking nightmares, recirculating past events with no expectation of awakening to the beauties of the now.

originally published on 10/10/08