DIARIES FROM DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Sometimes I feel like constant pain is part of being human.   

Self-awareness is dished up to us like it’s an upgrade, with this idea that once you finally get it, life gets lighter, clearer, or easier but it doesn’t. 

Life gets heavier because once you become self-aware you don’t get the comfort of ignorance anymore. You start seeing patterns that you used to live inside and before you go down the rabbit hole with someone you pull yourself up and finally get the chance to do it differently.  Your reactions come without excuses, you’re no longer avoidant and you stop blaming everything on circumstance.  You don’t get to say that’s just how I am and walk away and be ok about it.

You see where you contribute, where you pull away and where you stay silent.   Sometimes that awareness doesn’t lead to immediate change and you can make peace with that.  But sometimes it just sits there, watching you, and start noticing how lonely it is here in this place.  When you’re the only person in the room who is has the ability to bite their tongue, or choose to speak up, you start to wonder what the point is because it always ends the same way.  Understanding someone’s behaviour, even when it hurts you is a curse and can turn you a little sour rather than behaving the same way because you no longer get the same relief from being reactive as they do. You don’t get the same satisfaction from exploding and it’s exhausting watching everyone play with the victim without any idea of the fact that they choose to continue engaging in the behaviour all because they aren’t willing to accept the part they play. 

When you see too much, you see why people do what they do and you see where their pain comes from.  You see the fear underneath the behaviour and that makes it harder to walk away, harder to be dramatic and harder to be careless.  You start carrying responsibility even though nobody asked you to and the price you pay for that solitude and you also know, just like them you also chose to be this way.  You chose a path that leads to solitude and in that solitude comes greater awareness and it slowly drives you mad. Because without the noise, you replay conversations you’ve had in the past that could’ve gone differently, you realise how many times you’ve handled something poorly before you knew better and how many versions of yourself you don’t fully recognise anymore. 

The worst part is self-awareness doesn’t erase anything and you can’t go back because once you see things clearly.  It forces you to slow down, to pause, to choose your words carefully and sometimes that restraint feels like a curse because reacting would be easier, blaming would be lighter and not knowing would be comfortable.

But now you know, and knowing changes the rules. You don’t get to unsee your patterns. You don’t get to unlearn your triggers. And you don’t get to pretend your actions don’t carry weight. Awareness demands responsibility and from here on out, every choice is deliberate.

I think I envy those who fear death because I don’t think they’re self-aware at all and how nice that would be.