Binge and Purge: Phantoms

I’m going to preface this by saying, this is a more serious entry. If you are not ready to swim the dark waters, I suggest you wait for me to return to a lighter fare. I want to share this though because I think it is better to be true to my feelings, and I hope it will help others to do the same.

As you are all aware, I am trying so desperately to put more focus on myself. It is excruciatingly difficult. Let me explain.

I grew up learning that I wasn’t important. My needs and wants and feelings are not a priority. The people in my life put other things first. Most of the time they were drunk or high or rushing to the ER, jail, rehab, what have you.

These were the priority.

I spent a good chunk of my high school career in the ER with my mom while she made the decision of whether or not to go to rehab. My mom has been in and out of rehab my entire life, and I don’t foresee that changing ever.

If my mom ever decided she was going to get help, this would generally be when she was already wasted. Here’s the thing, a hospital can’t admit you to a rehab if you are drunk. The process goes: you bring the person to the ER, tell the staff they want to be admitted, then sit in this tiny room for most or all of the day, until they are sober enough to make a sound decision on the matter. You hope, they keep the original decision but that’s not always the case.

My younger sisters and I had a whole routine down on taking shifts, bringing food for each other, talking with hospital staff, etc. This was also before everyone had cell phones, so you just had to hope that your replacement would show up before you hit your breaking point.

We were too young to realize we could just leave. But we were also brought up severely religious and taught to honor thy mother and father. We didn’t understand that this isn’t our responsibility.

My mother was also a master manipulator and guilt tripper. I’m not talking your typical “I’m disappointed” mom speak. I mean my mom one time told me having children is worse than being crucified. A bit extreme, right? But when you are young, and you’re told to listen to your parents, you believe it. You beat yourself up for thinking you are making your mom feel like she is being crucified every day, and thus wind up in an ER for 12 hours to make up for that fact, and hope with all hope that this time it will stick.

A typical cycle would happen every time we approached this situation. First, my mother would be sweet and grateful that we brought her, and that she is really going to try this time. After an hour or so, she would begin to turn a bit sour and doubt the decision she made. She would try to convince us that she doesn’t need to go to rehab and we should just go home and have a nice lunch. A hospital does not let you leave if you are still drunk.

When the realization sinks in that she was not leaving for a while, that’s when pleas and guilt would come into play. “Please just talk to the doctors.” “I am your mother.” “I’m a widow of 8 children.” “How can you do this to me?”

No matter what, it was out of our hands. A hospital won’t let you leave their care if you are drunk.

This is when the insults and anger would fly. I’ll be honest, I remember my mother getting angry and saying some bad stuff, but it is all a foggy haze. I can picture it, but I definitely blocked out the specifics. Lucky for you.

Once this was out of her system, my sisters and I might typically be found crying or shouting back. This would bring on the apologies and the cycle would start back from the beginning. She is really going to try this time.

If you are lucky, you watch your mom get put into an ambulance and brought to a rehab facility. Hopefully, you already packed a bag for her, but sometimes you have to figure out the hours that you are allowed to get to the center and drop off the essentials.

This is just a tiny glimpse of some of the moments that created this overwhelming idea that I am not important.

Because we were raised with this sort of manipulation and abuse, some of my siblings have naturally learned this behavior. As such, I still struggle with it today. I don’t talk to my mom much any more, but I’m still finding myself running into similar situations.

It started with my mom, it used to happen with my ex, there are moments with my siblings, and I find myself unknowingly bringing these people into my life.

I am a very empathetic person. As such, I feel for people who are hurting, troubled souls, damaged goods. Unfortunately, some of these people create an unhealthy environment for you. Not all, but the ones who are prone to manipulation and abuse, can sniff the empathy off of you from a mile away and hook it to their veins like a drug. In other words, they take advantage of you.

If you have ever been in an unhealthy relationship, you have most likely witnessed this type of cycle I just described with my mom. Most times, these people just want a reaction from you. They want validation, they want all the attention.

I discovered that if I ever attempted to put any effort or time for myself, these people pull out the extremes to bring it all back on them. They make you think that you are a terrible girlfriend, wife, daughter, sister, friend, person because they see this as a threat. They are viewing your personal gain as a glowing reflection on their personal insecurities. They don’t want you to soar above and away from them because that means they are left on their own to face their personal problems.

Most times, they will insult you, belittle you, tell you that you don’t love them or care for them.

Before, I used to fall right into their hands. I would cry, expressing that of course I love and care for them. I would fight and scream, which they would then turn on me as proof that I don’t love and care for them. It was horrible and it still creeps up from time to time.

It got to a point where I stopped reacting. I would “turn the other cheek.” I would let the insults and threats and pleas bounce off me. This of course meant they would have to turn up the volume. Eventually, I just had to physically remove myself. It is a very difficult thing to do when it is among the people you care about the most.

I see a lot of posts online saying things like “You are the only reason you’re in a bad situation.” Maybe not that exact wording but you get it. There is some truth to this, but also fuck that.

When you grow up in an insanely unhealthy environment, you are conditioned to believe that you belong there. You are conditioned to believe that this is normal and you aren’t worthy of something better. You are taught that each time you take a step towards personal growth, a blow of insults and abuse is the result.

So, you find it easier to just stop fighting to improve yourself. You internalize the pain and hurt, and keep pushing forward with every day life. But every day life is still hard and you find yourself at breaking points trying to hold it all together.

In case you can’t work with the context clues, I’m talking about myself.

I feel lucky that I am making my way past all this. It took so much work with therapy, groups, books, and all sorts of different outlets, but I’m finally making my way. This will most likely be a life long struggle for me and that’s okay.

Most recently I have been struggling a bit because I still find myself in these situations. I find myself trying to reason with people that just want to manipulate and get any kind of reaction from you. I think, I can handle this because I am learning and growing. But what I am finding is that even though YOU may be growing as an individual, and understanding these situations with a more critical brain, the other party is not. It doesn’t matter how many ways you approach the situation, they are only going to see it in one light.

Again, as an empathic person, it hurts me even more to realize this. It almost makes me want to try harder. When I do though, it’s like I jumped into a batch of quicksand. You can’t talk your way out of quicksand. You are just going to sink to a slow death.

I recently discovered this song called Phantoms by Czarface. It’s kind of goofy and is performed by a group of men who wear masks and use super hero/villain personas. However, the chorus to this song cuts deep with me. It goes “Why do these phantoms always wind up haunting me?” Every time I hear it, all I can think about is these toxic people and situations that keep popping up in my life. Why do they all keep haunting me?

I play it on repeat a lot and bawl my eyes out. It’s also just an amazing song. But how ridiculous am I? Can we just discuss for a second. Most people put on sad music like Adele or whatever and let their emotions fly. Here I am, listening to a semi funny song, performed by super hero/villain rappers, and I just cry. Can you understand why I struggle sometimes in today’s society? Who does that? I am not normal. But that’s okay. It tends to make me laugh when I think of the ridiculousness of me crying to this rap song.

The finale line goes “Bad company, bad karma, bad luck.” How perfect is that? So true. So true. I have honestly been taking that to heart more, discovering that the people I surround myself with, directly dictate whatever situation I’m in.

I always felt like I was bad luck. Things never seemed to work out right and it was like I couldn’t catch a break. Over the past year or so, I started to remove the people and situations that weren’t adding any positive influence into my life. Simultaneously, I discovered my luck was changing. Good stuff started happening and I finally felt like things were going my way. I didn’t correlate the two until recently.

It’s mind blowing to think that the formula could be that easy. Of course, it’s never easy, and as I stated before, an unhealthy environment can eat you whole and leave you with nothing but self doubt.

If you are finding yourself in constant doubt or fear or just general bad luck, stop and look at the people and places that surround you. A flower can’t grow in a dark hole with no one to water it. You may think “why me?” all the time, but sometimes it’s actually the people shouting it in your face.

Remember that scene in Good Will Hunting? Robin Williams is having a session with Matt Damon and he says to him, “It’s not your fault.” Matt plays it off like it’s no big deal, yea he knows. But Robin keeps repeating this phrase till it ultimately breaks Matt and he burst into tears discovering, it’s not his fault he is like this. That scene always resonates with me.

If you’ve been in toxic situations or relationships that leave you thinking you aren’t worthy of something more, I just want you to remember you are. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. Bad company. Bad karma. Bad luck.

Originally published at bingepurgepop.wordpress.com on August 2, 2018.