I sincerely apologize; this week I got my midterm schedule, and have been super busy studying and such. But I really do want to maintain my goal of posting once a week, because I really do enjoy writing. So for this week, just a short, informal thought.
For privacy and dignities sake I will be as vague about specifics as possible, when relaying my story, especially pertaining to a specific individual and their actions. (No, this isn’t gonna be one of those philosophical things where the individual that I am speaking about in third person then turns out to actually be me, that would be stupid.)
In those years before I reached the double digits, there was this member of my household who was a bit of a jerk. They were significantly older than me, and would invade my space emotionally, and on an occasion physically. They were struggling with a mental health problem at the time, and other members of the household made it clear that this individual requires compassion. They were given a huge spotlight for the longest time, whether the attention was positive, or, as it usually was, negative. It was like everything revolved around them, and any actions they took against me was not to be discussed in terms of the way I felt, but in terms of what it meant for this individual. I feared for him, and any punishment he might be getting, but I also felt pity for him, as though I might have had a part in his wretched situation, but mostly I didn’t feel. I felt that my feelings simply didn’t matter, so if I did have a feeling, it had to do with what I felt for others, or what I had to do for others. Since no one else seemed to care or address how I felt, I learned from their example. Only others could have feelings. It didn’t help that I was seven.
This individual invaded my space at a time when I didn’t even know what it meant to have boundaries, because I was still a kid, and still impressionable. Specifics of how I was violated are not the point for today. The point is how I chose to respond to my boundaries, and the way I felt being breached. I would ignore the way I felt, but at the same time, because I still did feel in a way that I couldn’t express, and didn’t know how, my retaliation took a similar form. I’d go into this individual’s room and move things around or take small things. It was not meant to be noticed, just to be an inconvenience. I did not want it to be revealed that I was the culprit. I wanted the inexpiable discomfort and lack of control that I couldn’t express to be had by this individual as well. They would never suspect I had been there, and would feel that their physical inner sanctum was not their own anymore, that they didn’t have control over where their things were, and if their things got lost easily or not. Unintentional poetic justice. It felt good to know that this was the one thing that I could do. At one point this individual had been particularly nasty, and I poured water on their bed from a cup that was next to it, hoping they would come to the conclusion that the cup spilled. I waited in a nearby room, at which point the individual went to bed and said to someone else, “My bed is all wet. What should I do?” I smiled to myself, although it felt as though the tension and anxiety of being discovered may burn me alive. I do not remember hearing the conclusion of the conundrum, though I wasn’t caught.
Never did I think to speak out to my parents, never did I reflect on why I was doing the things I was. It was as if my mouth had been erased. I felt as if the world rested on my shoulders alone, and explaining was a fruitless effort, as some things only I could see and only I could understand. I remember feeling that way even from a young age. I was just a pair of eyes, witnessing but never taking a stand or reacting, and that’s all I was at the time. I didn’t deserve to feel, so expressing myself was out of the question. I was punished for wrongdoings, the nature of which I was not at fault for. Yet whether I was at fault or not didn’t matter. I was just faulty. Yet reflection there was none, understanding of my position there was none. I was just a pair of burned, flawed, corrupted eyes. Just a mouth less pair of eyes.