90) Weaponization of the Benign and Beneficial

Weaponization of the Benign and Beneficial

When I was 18, I very much believed that everything was my fault. I’m not saying that in a self-pitying way, I’m saying that because that’s how I understood the world and my place in it.

Live, Laugh, Love

I also believed that I was responsible for my behaviors, beliefs, attitudes, moods, words, and all kinds of other things, which happens to be true. (I know. Even a broken clock is right twice a day; so where’s the line between accountability and self-loathing?)

I was very adamant that I was not going to allow my attitudes and emotions to hurt people the way my mom had. No matter where I had come from, no matter how much I hurt, no matter how unfair life was, or how hard, I was going to be good to people. I was going to adopt attitudes that make my life better, not worse.

I would be like the motivational posters that hung in the Assistant Principal’s office in high school where people are dangling from cliffs and standing on top of mountains and stuff.

Keep Calm and Carry On

I also very much believed that living well is the best revenge, and although I did not want “revenge” on anybody, I did hope to live well enough for them to know I wasn’t trash.

No Fear

I didn’t have money. I didn’t have people. I didn’t have resources, and I didn’t live in a place with amazing infrastructure. I didn’t have a good resume. I didn’t have experience. I didn’t have any negotiating skills (nor did I believe I was worth any more than I would be given).

I knew I would probably die young. I knew I would hurt for the rest of my life, inside and out. I knew my body wasn’t particularly healthy- I had always been overweight, and was between 220-250lbs since I’d left home. My joints popped all of the time, on their own, and I had to continually pop most of them in a rotation or I couldn’t move. My neck had hurt since I was about 11. My hands would rage with carpel tunnel.

Remember Your ‘Why’

All of those things were real, and true, and I accepted them. I didn’t want to turn into my mom. I didn’t want my reality to make me bitter, and cold, and hard. I wanted to love. I wanted to grow. I wanted to glow. You just can’t do that if you’re mad all the time. You can’t do that if you’re feeling sorry for yourself.

I wanted to be happy. I wanted to find peace. I wanted to make that peace for my baby.

I wanted to find my inner Susan Powter, who my mom was very fond of pointing to as the way out of my fat trap. I just had to get my mind right, and I wasn’t there yet. But I was responsible for getting there.

I had spent my share of time Sweating to the Oldies, and knew it wasn’t really the sweat that I’d been missing, so it must have been my attitude. I just didn’t mean it enough- yet.

Nobody was going to do it for me, I had to figure it out for myself.

I thought that maybe if I got it just right, I could be loveable. I had to have the right mindset, and it was going to be POSITIVE dammit.

It Could Be Worse

That’s a big part of my attraction to Wicca. Of course I loved it because it didn’t require me to hate myself, and it didn’t make me feel like a slut for having a human body with desires, and it required me to rethink how I think.

Step Up or Step Aside

I had to take full responsibility for my life. There was no safety net, so I had to show up for me.

Let Go And Let God

Whereas Christianity had claimed that one dude’s massive suffering had wiped clean all human sin, Wicca said that I was responsible for the way I interact with the world. If I thought something crummy about someone, I felt like it would be my fault if anything happened to them. I was carrying enough blame and I was not about to add to the list.

Do As Thou Wilt An Harm Ye None

The Power of Positive Thinking, published in 1990 was widely embraced, and it was empowering in so many ways. Just the thought of positivity made me feel like I could be in control of me, like I SHOULD be in control of me

Crying Isn’t Going To Fix Anything

I also knew that when I had a good attitude, I enjoyed my life more, and I enjoyed my interactions with others more. I was grateful for my life and my freedom. I enjoy giving. I enjoy healing. I enjoy nurturing. I love loving.

You’ve Got To Stand For Something Or You’ll Fall For Anything

I focused on controlling me, working on me, and figured that I would find out what that deserved. If I didn’t like what that deserved, then I needed to control myself better. If I was angry or sad, it just meant that I wasn’t accepting what I deserved, and I felt childish.

What Doesn’t Kill Us Makes Us Stronger

It looked like resilience, and people love resilience. I was also incredibly optimistic, which is kind of remarkable looking back. I needed that; it’s how I knew that things didn’t have to feel awful all of the time.

Allowing myself to beg for my ex-husband, feeling helpless, despairing, and heartbroken, wasn’t a good look, and I was never ever going to grovel like that to anybody ever again.

Nobody gave a crap if my heart hurt, and I couldn’t lose myself to it. So what if nobody cared? If I let myself feel my relationship with my mom, it might have actually killed me.

I believed in a meritocracy

I was going to pull myself up by my bootstraps, and go live the American Dream where we are all created equal in the land of opportunity.

This was America. This was the place where anybody could make it if they just work hard enough, sacrifice enough, and stay the course. Don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly grateful for the work ethic I had and my willingness to tough it out. It’s gotten me through so much, but it’s also victim blaming. I had no idea about The Working Poor, I just thought that’s how you got your foot in the door.

Even ideas about Motherhood are weaponized, as the expectation to have it all, and do it all mean an invisible second shift that costs nothing but love (and sweat and tears and lost sleep, and feeling alone and misunderstood, but, whatever). Really, it was just the baseline for being a decent mom.

Weaponized ideologies like positivity, the bootstrap myth, the motherhood expectation, controlled my behavior for a long time. It made me feel like I was wrong and failing all of the time. It made me obsess over being better, perfecter, perfectest if I try hard enough.

Over the years I’ve also discovered that the same vulnerability that leads to connection and intimacy is often the first thing weaponized during a breakup. It’s a blow beneath the belt, and a go to move for most.