How Far is Far Enough?

How far is far enough away to escape the past? I am further away now from the place of my birth than I have ever lived. I wish could say it was an entirely pleasant journey, but it was more of a flight.  It is not that I was running out of fear so much that I was escaping an environment that no longer fit. It isn’t easy being the square peg that those closest to you insist on trying to jam into the round hole. In the roughly interpreted words of Aristotle “A person cannot be what they are not.”

It has taken close to a year for me to understand these things. I had to work through feelings of betrayal, and rage. For months I was just angry at everything; feeling like I was being punished for finally standing up for myself. However, the heart can experience many emotions at once; anger and appreciation is a very odd mixture. At the same time that I wanted to figuratively burn the world down, I was also very appreciative of the love I felt around me from my immediate family. I look at my mom’s dog sleeping, and I wish I was a dog. A dog, with a good family, can lead a simple life and be happy as long as they have food, water, attention, and one human in the world who loves them. They are not plagued with “whys” or “if I did it differently.” They are just dogs; they feel safe or they don’t. Dogs are happy when their needs are met or their needs are not met and they are not happy. So I wish I could just be a dog in a good home; no living in the past.

Thinking along this path brings me to Maslow’s’ hierarchy of needs, and how it is a good diagram for the needs of all humans. It is arranged in a pyramid with the most basic needs being at the bottom as they are of the most important, but also nothing can be accomplished unless the needs are met in order. For instance, the first step of the pyramid is designated for sleep, food, water, warmth. Once these needs are met the next step is security; or your own shelter, and feeling safe within it. There are five levels to this pyramid with the top being self-actualization. This is the point where a person reaches their fullest potential. Though I have known about Maslow since high school, I don’t think I ever really understood its importance.

However, this assumption of myself may not be exactly fair since I have always been more concerned with the happiness of those I love than my own happiness. This, by the way, is a backward philosophy and a person should save themselves a lot of pain by flipping that; the sooner the better. The better version of this philosophy is that a person needs to love themselves first and foremost. By loving themselves, they are then better able to love others. Why did I have it backward for so long? Well, I’ll explain that another time. Meanwhile, the subject at hand is how my backward thinking accidentally invited a lot of toxic people into my life. None of these people seemed outwardly toxic, meaning that they did not have an obvious pessimism towards life or a drug addiction I should have steered clear from. On the contrary, they initially seemed to care a lot about my wellbeing. It was not until I trusted them, and became emotionally vulnerable that they slowly started tearing me apart.

I feel I should say here that this is not a “woe is me” essay, but an unfortunate truth. I know there are many in the same situation who do not realize it. The trick is that toxic people, who often possess traits of narcissism (I can’t diagnose them, I’m not a doctor) are very good at what they do. Physical abuse is easy to identify, but emotional abuse is difficult partly because the abuser convinces the abused that they are the problem, and they are selfish. The person being abused is so confused by the mental manipulation, which slowly becomes worse over time, that they believe there surely must be something they’re doing to deserve it. In a sense, narcissists are the world’s most successful illusionists.

It has been presented to me that a lot of people believe I should just forgive and forget. Though I do share in the idea that forgiveness is a powerful thing which does much for releasing those who have been harmed, there is indeed a state of being that comes between forgiving and being angry. As I have come to understand that state is pity. I don’t forgive those who have wronged me, but I pity them; I am free, and they are stuck with themselves.

Note from the Author: It should be noted that this essay was written some time in 2016.