Chapter 7: Am I the bad guy?

[i] "Hi. Its me. I'm the problem, it's me"  Taylor Swift [/i]

Its been a while since I had written here, and alot has been going on. I guess it's best to start out from where I left off. As part of my celebrate recovery group, we are currently working on our personal inventory. It's essentially a list that goes through a life review, with all the people we have encountered, hurts off the past, people we may have hurt, decisions made, and how it shaped us as people. Needless to say, it hurts. Alot. As I go through the list, I can't help but to think of all the people I have affected through my actions, words, and decisions, and I am noticing a pattern now, something I didn't want to acknowledge, or perhaps didn't realize, before. It's at a point where I need to at least write it down and go into my correlations.

While working on myself, I have been studying and going into Schema Therapy. For those of you who don't know, schema therapy is a study made by Dr. Young, and it incorporates our beliefs about ourselves, the world around us, and the world of others. Schemas generally operate within the background of our awareness, but they do have a great influence over our sense of self, our expectations about life, and the quality of our relationships. In other words, its the framework in which we make sense of everything around us. Through various assessments I had taken, It was discovered that my schemas are dominated by two maladaptive areas, in which my perception is primarily focused on other-directedness and overvigilance/inhibition. I show great signs of self-sacrifice and negativity/pessimism. Both of almost self-explanatory, but comes with specific details about them. Self-sacrifice is associated with emotional deprivation, where much care is put onto others and I tend to refuse or receive little in return. I would purposely suppress my own needs in order to avoid negative consequences simply because I "believe its the right thing to do". As a result, my actions try to seek validation from others while never acknowledging my own needs and wants. It was honestly freighting to see how accurate it was. What was more horrifying was the negative/pessimism aspect of things.

As the name suggest, negativity and pessimism is just viewing the world and actions on the negative side of things. It's typically associated with stress and a lot of ramifications about the future. If that doesn't describe me to a tee, I don't know what does. But when associating the self-sacrifice aspect of things, it leaves me to be indecisive and self-sabotaging. In obsessing's over my efforts prevent mistakes, I often make mistakes in pleasing the wrong people, just for the identification and recognition needed to "belong". Even if its for the wrong reasons. Just by being part of the wrong crowd and the desire to please everyone, I would make decisions that would hurt me in the end, even if I didn't associate with it or knew it was the wrong thing to do. 

Just learning about that hits hard. And also explains a lot. I would fall to peer pressure, knowing it bad or something I shouldn't be doing, just so that others can get satisfaction and I would "belong". And it plays into my constant thought of failure, actual failures, and constant feelings of impending doom. And I would lie about my feelings constantly, so that others don't need to worry about me at all. It's something I have been working on, since before the arrest I had, but at the same time, something I still struggle with, especially now that I am in this limbo with everything. 

Now that I have better knowledge about myself, I am able to put a different perspective into my personal inventory, and boy, was I a messed up individual. Probably still am. I noticed a pattern of constantly putting myself as a victim, blaming others instead of myself for my actions and misdeeds, and I inhibited bad behaviors among others instead of really helping others just so I can be seen more favorably among them instead of focusing on myself. I was a pretender, just so I could satisfy others. And lied to myself, about what I was doing and telling myself "this is me" when in reality it never was. I do care about people, and I want to make things right. I am not who I made myself to be, it never resonated with me personally and I realized I didn't have a desire towards my actions, but rather a desire to be accepted, even if it were with the wrong people. I was alone, and I hurt the wrong people that should have never been hurt to begin with, genuine, good people. If I had the ability, I would go back in time and undo some things, and never engage with some activities to begin with. I wish I could make amends to people, and truly express how sorry I am about some things, but I now know that it may never come at this point, and I have to learn from my actions to be a better person in general. Its about what I do from here, and seeking redemption for myself and to those who really matter to me. My family, people I still consider to be good friends, and everyone I encounter in the future. I know I am a messed up person, and I may be a bad guy. I don't want to be that anymore, and I am on a path to better myself as a whole. It will take time, and that's all I have now.