Rebecca O'Donnell's Blog, page 7
April 17, 2013
That touch of Discomfort
April 14, 2013
Insecurity Addicts
Like I said. Stubborn.
Of course that's all bullshi*. I am a wonderful, talented and very kind person who happens to have experienced true horror and bled from it. So what? I've made monumental mistakes for the majority of my life. Again, so what? I'm not bleeding now. My mistakes don't go monumental anymore. I am a wealth of both bad and good choices, dumb ideas and clever insight, broken hearted misery and breathless joy. The difference is that now, I understand my mindset was addictive, and I treat it as an addiction. Daily self love exercises, refraining from witty self abuse, cutting negative people out of my life, is how I protect myself. Where once I was stunted and stagnant, now I'm growing.
April 4, 2013
Tough Love Fate
I’ve noticed a strange thing about Life Paths. When you’re on the wrong one, as too many of us are, things suck. People are mean, friends are two-faced, your job’s lousy, pay’s worse, and your home is substandard or paid for by a control freak mate. Self esteem is a “notch below Kafka’s,” and you obsess over your own many faults while beating yourself up for being an idiot. The cycle repeats and repeats and repeats until your blood pressure’s through the roof and you can’t see anything but the shit stinking walls of the deep hole you’re in. Up is just an unreachable dot of sky somewhere overhead.
Looking back on my own sewer of memories, it’s amazing that I survived my self-loathing. There must have been something inside me that wanted to live; some tiny piece that understood Life wasn’t what I had always known. A wonderful world existed outside of the boundaries I lived in. I simply never believed that world was for me. I knew it was there, but it was part of that unreachable dot of sky: unattainable and not destined for the unworthy.
That’s one of the sneaky things about an insecurity addiction. It convinces you that you would somehow besmirch a beautiful world if you dared even try to enter it. Long all you want, bitch. Pine away. But if you take one step into that happy place, you’ll muddy it with your filth. So fuck off and die in your self made pit. You deserve it. Do something noble for once and stay out of a world you don’t belong in. Don’t even think about getting out. You’re mine. When I was in college, I took a fellow abuse victim into Union Hall at the University of Illinois. It’s a beautiful building, full of carved wood and gorgeous architecture, comfortable leather couches and enormous Persian rugs. My companion began to shake and stutter, and a fine sweat broke out on his forehead. “Naw…naw, I gotta get outta here,” he mumbled, eyes wild. “I…I don’t belong in a place like this. This is too damn good for me. I gotta get outta here.” I tried to argue, saying he was worthy of anybody who’d ever stepped through the doors, but he was inconsolable and even teary-eyed. Adamant. We left, and he began to calm down. I think about that moment a lot. My insecurity was bad, but I never even thought about being unworthy of traipsing about a building. I think insecurity worms its way around our distinct personalities, finding the most effective ways to widen the cracks in our self worth. Each of us is every bit as individual as our own fingerprints. Insecurity follows the unique whorls and patterns of our psyches and targets anything that shores up strength of purpose. It’s hard as hell to build a life when your foundation is crumbling.
When I finally began responding positively to my daily self-love exercises, my world began to change too. I started to realize what a vicious bully I’d been to myself for decades, what a manipulative bitch my self-loathing side was…and how it had dominated everything. My brain was stuffed with self abuse and bitter, bubbling rage, sometimes spilling out into nose bleeds and self-mutilation. Certainly poor judgment. I picked monsters to love, back-stabbers to befriend, and slave drivers to work for. As insecurity started losing its foothold over everything, sliding into the background instead of dominating the stage, Fate began to seem far less vitriolic. I used to wonder why so many terrible things happened to me. Why was Life so hard, what was it about me that obviously deserved to be train fucked by pedophile deviants and abused by everybody else? As I started caring about me, screwed up old Rebecca, I began looking through eyes no longer clouded with filth. Not rose-colored glasses, not shit-soaked lens, but clear eyes. I had a manure pile of memories. What possible use could this smelly mountain be to me? What could it ever achieve but a terrible gravity to drag me back down? And I would never be rid of it. No amount of therapy could erase it. It was in the past, done, set in stone. It happened. No pill, no book, no amount of prayer or meditation could ever change that.
So I decided to make use of it. I could let it simmer in the acidic cauldron it’d always boiled in, or I could take the experience of it and do some good. There’s a world of broken and bitter abuse victims, a plethora of insecurity addicts, a sea of self-loathing raging bulls out to take revenge on Fate itself. I can help them all because I am one of them.
Experience can be a blessing or a curse. Mine used to be all curse. Now it’s my dog, obeying my orders and doing what I demand. Grudgingly, sure, but still obeying. And that’s monumental. I’ve gone from servant to master of my memories. It’s been a long hard road, with many pitfalls and endless stumbles, but it’s mine now. Bruised and battered, I’m still climbing, with a big ass grin on my face. Come join me, my fellow basketcases, and start the climb toward that dot of sky. We have wings. Let’s get up there and stroll through the clouds.
Take care.
Love, R
March 30, 2013
Bullies
March 28, 2013
The Screenplay Venture
I start writing on a screenplay version of FREAK in a few days. What a surreal venture this is going to be. When I first started writing, I had no idea it would eventually turn into a memoir. I was simply ranting into my computer as an exercise recommended by my therapist.
The whole therapy venture was ironic to begin with. I’d always wanted to go to therapy, recognized the fact that I was fucked up, but was too much of a bruised mouse to demand it. My husband said it was too expensive and I simply nodded, weary with the knowledge that I’d never been worth spending money on. What a ten ton anvil self-hatred is, and how our bad relationships love to keep loading us up with more weight. And we allow it because we hate us too. What’s so funny about how I eventually made it to the marvelous Ms B, my therapist, is that my husband sent me after I told him our marriage was over. He thought she’d convince me to stop being nuts and go back to him.
It was an exhausting, emotionally cathartic yet devouring experience to write FREAK. Insecurity addicts have a tendency to gloss over the facts when it comes to memory. We’ve hardwired ourselves to see everything we did in a despicable light, regardless of age or circumstance. I remember my being a cocktease whore before I’d hit puberty, asking for all those unwanted dicks in unwilling orifices. When I began to knuckle down and legitimately write FREAK, my research began to show me the glaring inaccuracies in my emotional memory. Strange, how simply putting events into chronological order could have such a life altering effect, but it’s true. I was forcing myself to see things as they actually happened, splitting emotions and memories into separate categories as I examined the facts. Eerie and strange, to discover what a complete self-abusing dumbass I’d spent my whole life being. And few people had a clue as to what was going on inside my poor fucked up head. Outwardly, I was hilarious, bizarre, kind-hearted Rebecca, the woman with a quick wit and a fierce temper, someone you could always count on to help if she could, someone who’d never be mean but could sometimes be scary. Inwardly, I was a vicious, cruel bitch to a battered child with a tattered vagina and bleeding asshole. Insecurity addicts are inhuman monsters to ourselves. Writing FREAK, examining the story as a writer instead of the subject, changed me. Analytical thinking came face to face with self-mutilating emotionalism and the two established a shaky truce. Nowadays, self love outweighs self hatred, and by a lot. You can make leaps and bounds forward once you pull yourself out of the quagmire and quit stewing in your own acidic juices.
So now the next stage: a screenplay. FREAK is a brutally blunt memoir, with a lot of direct engaging of the reader as I ramble on about this that or the other horror or pondering. The good thing is, I’ve written a few screenplays already and I’m a movie fanatic. Those help a lot. So wish me luck in my screenplay venture. I’m thrilled to have had such a talented film director approach me about it in the first place. Being a brother of circumstance himself, he understands where my bouncy brain is coming from. I believe he can do a good job translating my story into film. Now to begin writing the damn thing. It will most likely be as much an adventure as writing the memoir.
Aieeeeeeeee!!!
Take care, All.
Love, R
March 25, 2013
Taking Sides
March 17, 2013
Brain Shrivellers
March 14, 2013
A Freakin' Freak Screenplay
A Big Hairy Monster
Ever notice the big hairy monster in your head as something separate from you? Or do you simply assume it’s your own snide voice, whispering your faults, sneering at your waistline, cackling at any attempt at self improvement?
Insecurity has a whole bag of tricks to keep us in line. Once it sneaks inside, it is very reluctant to ever leave. It doesn’t matter if it crept in during an outside attack, such as abuse or violence, or if shyness gave it an opening.
Like any other addiction, the first line of control is to build a firewall, a slight-of-hand trick to distract us from its existence. Look at the firewall, not what’s behind it. So insecurity mimics our voice, makes us think we deserve self ridicule. That’s its firewall. It convinces us that we suck, keeps up the steady diet of relentless criticism to keep us down, then settles into the comfortable environment it’s created.
I was a puppet on a string with my own insecurity. Every day, I found something wrong with the stupid, fat, ugly, talent-wasting loser named Rebecca O’Donnell. I memorized cruel words from others and forgot praise. Forgot, or didn’t believe. If someone complimented me, I didn’t say “thank you.” I made some joke about how wrong they were. If they persisted, I was grateful for their blind kindness, knowing they’d run screaming if they truly knew what a piece of shit I was inside. I was good at hiding, brilliant at avoiding confrontation, mouthy without backbone. A smiling liar. That’s how I saw myself, that’s what I really thought, and my own insecurity became as damaging as any drug or alcohol addiction.
Looking back, I still marvel at my own vicious cruelty. Never in a million years would I ever say, to another human being, half the vitriolic spite I spewed at myself. But when it came to me, I was unforgiving. Nobody could convince me I was worth a damn. They were all well-meaning idiots who didn’t have a clue as to how awful I really was inside. I clung to my insecurity addiction with the same fanatic loyalty a crack addict does to her pipe. No. Thank you for the attempt to save me, world, but you don’t know me. I shouldn’t be saved. I don’t want to be saved. I adore my wretched, miserable, terrible existence. So thank you, but fuck off.
It’s a strange thing to begin the first step of the journey to love yourself. You’re far from alone: self hatred, contempt, sadism, exhaustion, sadness, fear, anger and panic are your constant companions. I dragged those fuckers around with me, chained like the money boxes to Jacob Marley’s ghost, engulfed and engorged by them. They’re heavy, they smell bad, and they are never silent. Everything, and I do mean everything, is thrown at you to stop your forward motion. Insecurity wants you to stay in the miasma, to continue drowning in the sea of rancid misery it’s spent years cultivating. And, Lord, do you want to stay still. The addiction becomes your world, your safe haven of beloved sorrow, the place where all your demons can come out to play, flaying you at leisure, punishing you again and again and again for daring to be a victim in the first place. We eat ourselves alive at this horrific feast, and thank our own hatred for doing it.
Like anything else, insecurity is fine in small doses. Even medium doses are acceptable as long as they’re short-lived. It took me a very long time to get to where I’m at today. I’ve walked maybe ten steps forward, but the difference of how I am now compared to how I was then is literally night and day. I am not all better. I will, no doubt, ever be all better. But that’s fine. Given my nutty past and my own contribution to my mental anguish, I can’t help being anything but grateful for what I have. For what I am. And what I will become. I am evolving, inside and out. I’ve shed the boxes, left the chains by the wayside, and walk with a few change purses jangling here and there. They remind me to not get cocky.
I am an insecurity addict. I will be for the rest of my life. As long as I’m aware of that, as long as I understand that I have to be always vigilant and keep loving myself, I can safeguard against the sullen monster who really, really misses me. I guess we human beings are pretty fucking delicious to our unwelcome squatters. But I am nobody’s feast, and insecurity’s had a big enough bite of me. So I do my little exercises. I say, “I love you, Rebecca” every day. Every night, I say, “Good night beautiful mind, good night beautiful body, good night beautiful spirit.” And the wondrous, miraculous, glorious truth is…I mean them. And that’s the greatest feeling in the world. So good luck, my brothers and sisters of circumstance, as you slog through the bubbling cesspool of your own self-loathing. It gets better if you keep moving forward. So hang in there. I’ll see ya along the way.
Take care.
Love, R
March 7, 2013
A Speeding Train
I’ve been talking a lot with my fellow basketcases about what it feels like when we’re at our lowest. The most common description is “being aboard a speeding train that’s about to crash.” Apt. There’s a strange panic which sets in when things get rough; one disaster after another, both real and imagined, seems to hit at once, a tsunami of shit that knocks our feet out from under us.
Insecurity addicts are always pulled hither and thither, hopping from one problem to another, spreading ourselves so thin we rarely fix anything well. Insecurity loves this. It squats on our shoulder and encourages us to fail, rushing us from one thing to the next, reveling in our angst as we fall behind and displease everybody. That, in turn, feeds panic, which keeps us in a perpetual state of fear and dissatisfaction, a perfect environment for insecurity to grow and thrive. Like any parasite, insecurity will manipulate its environment to fit its needs, not ours, and will continue to do so even after we’re consumed. It needs to keep us down so as to feed on us.
When I was still in my rotten marriage, I didn’t realize what my own unwanted passenger was doing. I thought it was all me. One of the first mindsets an addiction instills in its host is blindness. We are absolute dumb asses when it comes to our own mental and emotional health. For me, during that time, nothing I did was good enough. I’d subconsciously picked a mate who would aid my insecurity addiction, a cruel man with his own baggage who was impossible to please. This was a challenge and an ego boost for me. If I could make someone like him happy, that was a huge deal. If I was strong enough to stay with such a sadistic, demanding person, then I had worth. I remember a co-worker of his ranting to me about what a bastard he was. She couldn’t understand how I could possibly stay with him. This pleased me. I smiled and told her that I was good at bearing adversity, that I was like a tree standing against a storm. She snorted and said, “Then you must be a fucking oak.” I fed off such comments; such a weird and twisted nourishment for such a wretched and starving individual. The more he hurt me, the more I hated myself and loved the strength I had to endure it. I clung to it amidst the chaos.
There was also the financial fear of failure. Peter, my ex, was forever telling me how I’d never make it on my own. I was too stupid with money, too ignorant of the marketplace, too inept at organization. My insecurity convinced me to believe the lies and I did it with a fearful gladness, grateful that, even as bad as the marriage was, independence would be far worse because I was such a worthless sack of shit.
My abusive childhood fed this as well. I watched Peter pick on our kids and often nagged him about it, but I truly thought this environment wasn’t too damaging for them. I was sure they would be able to bounce back from these little digs and constant belittling. My skewed brain reasoned that, “He wasn’t raping them, he wasn’t beating them, so it really wasn’t that bad.” But it was. My own insecurity put my children in danger. They grew up in an environment of fun with Mom when Dad was away, misery when he was there. I thought fun with Mom was enough. I thought my praising them, spending time with them, would be a shield against the day-to-day emotional bruising. But I, too, had become an obedient dog. Peter told me to punish Rhianna for her grades, punish her for her slovenly nature, punish her for not being his, basically. And I did. I yelled at her and pulled my hair out with the frustration of her constant fuckups, blind to the obvious cries for help from my poor daughter. Like her mother, Rhianna became so beaten down with misery and self-loathing that she contemplated suicide. Leland, my son, turned to drugs. I was wrong that incest and violence were the only things to destroy a child’s sense of self worth, so my kids paid the same price I did as a little girl. I’d helped spread my own addiction into their innocent little heads, even as I was desperately hoping they’d be all right. And insecurity grinned at the envelopment of a whole new set of nests to grow in. It had used me as a tool to spread, just as it did my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents for a dozen generations.
We come into this world as fresh young innocents. We’re molded and shaped by a thousand and one different experiences. Most of our teachings aren’t even recognized, let alone acknowledged. So many lessons and pop quizzes are sprung on us, right under our noses, and we don’t even know what’s happening. Our brain gets this flood of information and tries its best to sort and store in the proper categories. But it only obeys what it thinks we want it to do. It reacts to emotions in much the same way our bodies do. Emotion is information too, just like book learning and what environmental factors are dangerous. Don’t touch a hot stove, don’t walk in front of a speeding car, don’t pet a grizzly bear. Emotional trauma is categorized as well, but usually in ways to damage. If we don’t counter trauma with healing, we never heal. I was a walking bag of wounds, seeping and infected, and I didn’t even know it. So my life was a speeding train about to crash, no time to catch my breath, only the constant race to destruction I was always trying to avoid by heaping coal in the furnace and making it go faster. As I said, insecurity addicts are blind dumb asses.
Thankfully, blissfully, my addiction no longer controls me. I found a way to slow the train long enough for me to jump off, waving at the conductor as it continued on its mad journey. The wounds I’d carried since birth were heavy and rotten, but I’ve worked on them since, finally recognizing that the only balm that works is love. My self hatred was salt and vinegar in the open sores, keeping them rank and fetid so my insecurity could feed. More than feed, spread to my beloved children. I fought to bring them back from the brink but the best example I could give was to step back from the precipice myself. I look to little Becky O’Donnell, the tiny rape victim who lives eternally inside of me, and I no longer beat or blame her for my own misery. Self love has cured my infection and daily self love exercises are healing my many wounds. The trick is to want to heal, to feel you deserve it. Insecurity likes to whisper otherwise, to the point where we experience guilt at the mere idea of happiness. Don’t believe it, even though it whispers in your own borrowed voice. It’s bullshit. You deserve to be happy, you deserve to be an example for others to follow. So get to it, my brothers and sisters of circumstance. Tell yourself “I love you” every day. Whether you believe it or not, and you probably won’t, keep at it. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and you weren’t fucked up in a day. Perseverance is the only thing that worked for me, and it’ll work for you. So keep at it. Best of luck.
Take care.
Love, R
