What I see in the mirror…
In Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, there is a scene where, after Harvey Dent is repaired by plastic surgery, he still goes mad and stages another crime. His face was fine, but all Harvey could see was scars. He tells Batman: "Go on and look at me, if you can stomach me. At least now both sides match." And this is the moment when I could most readily identify with Two Face.
When other people look at me, they see only the other aspects of me. People who see my pictures notice my smile. They note how happy I look. Yeah, I'm really good at smiles. I've been faking smiles for a long, long time.
When hubby looks at me, he sees a beautiful woman, and he thinks he's lucky to have me. When people look at my pictures and hear how old I am, they see a person who they think is aging amazingly well. On the outside, yes. In the inside, I'm falling apart. My doctors predict I've got until my 50's. I've been trying to fight this with exercise and such, but exercise can't fix plaque scars in my head. It also doesn't preven relapses. I'm drifting from my point. No shock there.
What none of you can see is what I see when I look in the mirror. Then I see all the scars, and I see the sheen of madness in my eyes. I'd swear everyone can see it, but they don't. I see this fractured, broken and ugly thing. I see a tired, broken monster slowly growing older and picking up even more scars because I can't stop sticking my hand in the bear trap. I should just keep to myself, shut down the comments and stop visiting forums again. But I get lonely. I go out and I want people to know me, and to understand me.
Only, you don't. You make me so mad when you project a story onto me that isn't true, and correcting you with the truth makes you angry in turn. Maybe I'm not really as scarred on the outside as my internal image suggests. But I know I'm not the good person that others have called me. Not this month, of course. This month, I chose to show you my darker and angrier side, to remind you that it is there. So a lot of you are pissed to discover that I'm not a good person. It always upsets me when you say I am, because it reminds me that you don't know anything about me, and you don't really want the truth anyway. You want me to lie and pretend I'm hiding for all the right reasons. I have to keep upsetting you to remind you that I'm not what you think I am.
I'm asking for something complex, and I'm sure I'm going to run off a lot of people for asking or expecting anything. But instead of seeing a good person doing the right thing, I want you to see me as me. I want you to acknowledge that I'm not good. But I don't want you to hate me simply because I reacted badly to a few years of torture. I would like to be friends with people, but I would prefer if they could see me and not put me down as someone with low self-esteem. Because yeah, maybe I do have low self-esteem. But I've got great self-control, all things considered.
I know it's hard to accept someone when they're asking, "please, see me as a monster and understand me in this frame of reference." I know your tendency is to downplay negative sentiments. But scars can't be healed with positive vibes, and no matter how you project your views on me, it still won't change what I see in my reflection. The scars run too deep.
I can't be sorry for the past that shaped me into this, and I won't just cheer up and get over it. So if it upsets you that every few months you have to put up with signs of my mental instability, you don't have to hang around making yourself upset by reading my ramblings. There's plenty of safer forms of crazy for you to interact with.
