Your flaws may just be linked to past traumas
Funny how life goes. You grow old, if you’re lucky enough, you try and analyse yourself. Your flaws. Why you do things the way you do.
Sure, you can also drown yourself in a routine and never really think about such a thing. I get that. I really do. I sometimes do it too.
Most of the time I prefer to try and grasp at my shortcomings, though. Even more so since I noticed that a lot them can be linked to event throughout MY life, be they real or fictitious. As I always say “Your brain’s just trying to build a coherent narrative out of all those broken pieces. Some might be false. There is no shame in that. This is still you.”
Tonight for instance, I definitely stumbled upon my mother’s aptitude to try and humiliate me in public. Not that I really care. but my uncaring is linked to it. See, if you grow old next to someone who humiliates you for no tangible reason. Or, let’s be real, let’s assume there’s a tangible reason, say you grow up next to someone who deals with your flaws through public humiliation. You’re bound to stop caring what anyone think.
I mean it. Stab me enough times, at some point it just becomes “yet another stab wound”.
This ain’t me dumping on my mom. This is me realizing I don’t deal with people’s flaws through humiliation. I don’t even think my mom’s a bad person. I just think she got bad traits. Flaws, we all got some.
But the issue is more complex than that.
See, most people on my Twitter or in my real life, they would tell you how “rock solid” Basile is. How you can count on him to walk you through the fire and shit. It might be true. I don’t really care. I don’t think am that nice.
But people say so.
Me? I’ve hit thirty and what I know is, for the longest of time I used to yell at people. Say you’d come to me and you needed help? Yeah sure, Imma grab your head. Imma tell you you can do this. We gon’ do this. You wanna walk through this fiery pit of fire. Fuck it, we do this together. I’ll watch you do this I know you can.
This is the peep, acquaintances think I am. Yet for the longest of time, I did not know how to react in front of a crying person. The crying and the tears always put me under such unease that I would start and yell and just be shitty to people who really didn’t need that.
And I’m forced to admit. I was raised being mocked when I showed flaws. So I stopped showing them. It’s that easy, if nobody knows, you don’t have flaws. You can fucking kill yourself without ever having shown any shortcoming. This type of sick dream can become an aim.
You can’t be seen as weak so you don’t like seeing people being weak.
I’ve been lucky. Imma be honest on here. For seven years I dated a wonderful girl. She was the one that pushed me to think on that; To change my way. It’s hard to fucking yell on the one you love when they’re just showing distress the best they can. When I reminisce on that, I’m like: How can people come to term with their partner being the one that’ll begin to cook and clean the flat and do the laundry and do anything in the house just to be sure you don’t have to even think about it — without neither of you having talk about it — yet once you begin to try and explain how shitty you feel, this exact same person is gonna scream at you because he doesn’t understand how to handle the situation.
This stupid man can handle a bullet but he cannot handle tears.
Most people nowadays would tell you I don’t yell when they show distress. I was lucky to have someone walk by my side, walk me through this. Teach me that it wasn’t a flaw for anyone to be crying in public, to not know what to do. I may not be the best buddy. Fuck, I know I’ll still answer with something like : I’m not you. I can’t comprehend. Walk me through what you’re feeling. We do this together.
It’s the best I do. Sometimes, I’ll just listen to you for fucking hours if you need. Even if you cry and you’re just bathing in self pity. I’ll try and get you.
I resolved this issue wihout ever getting where it really came from. I knew it needed to be adressed. I know I needed to work on that. I wanted my partner to feel safe to confide in me.
But am always interested in the origins of stuff. This maybe why am here tonight, 1AM, writing some lifestyle blog post.
Maybe it’s becoming adult: trying to overcome your shortcomings and even when you’ve passed them, you finally notice, it all stems from your childhood.
Fuck, we all got flaws, we got a fucking right to show them.
