I am descended from two very messed up bloodlines. My father's side is what I call pure evil. And my mom's is crazy. Me, I'm a very nice person who is passionate and loving and good.
I'm also just a little bit crazy and a tad evil.
Not a lot. Not like the others in my family, that's for sure. I talk to myself, I live in imaginary worlds, and I tend to freak out in crowds. That's about as crazy as I get anymore. And I'm not very evil. I don't like to hurt other people and I don't plot to take over the world.
But I do have a very cold, calculating side to me. It usually only comes out if I sense a threat to myself or others, but it's always there, beneath the surface of my soul.
And it's always scared me.
This side of me adds up the universe in cold, uncaring sweeps, and looks at the world and sees logic and math, not people and lives. It sees probabilities, and how to use people to get what I want. It's never hot, never passionate, and it is achingly patient.
I recently commented on YeamieWaffles blog, and I said some things from that side of myself. I told him about how to destroy a person using social connections and how simple it was if you just did it subtly. And I used that side of myself when I was raped. I calculated how best to handle this potentially violent man and how to get away relatively unscathed. This side of me did not care that if I followed through on this plan, I'd lose all chance at prosecuting him for his rape. It only cared about survival.
Now he's free to go on raping other women. Nor does he realize what he did was even rape.
That is the consequence of my choice. But that side of me still doesn't care. Because it was the best way to survive, and that was all that really mattered.
The man I told everyone about yesterday has always scared me, too. Not because he's dangerous. But because he reminds me of this side of myself. That evil little piece inside my soul that can destroy a life. He revels in that side of himself. He's everything I am in that segment of my heart and that scares me.
Because I don't want to be like him. Or like the other evil people in my family.
I still care about others. I still hate hurting people. I will never be a violent person. But I do have a strong vindictive streak. And I hate that this side of me is so alive and active right now. I'm sure it has to do with the anger I'm feeling.
I wish anger was hot and terrible for me, like it is for other people. That it flamed as high as when my mom loses her temper, and then fizzles itself out when it runs out of fuel. My anger is cold. It feels like my emotions, usually so alive and active, just die inside me. Like all the heat of my soul is extinguished beneath a glacier of uncaring anger.
It releases from me in one of two ways. Either it builds until I explode and use words to tear a person into shreds. Or it slowly and systematically strips a person of everything they care about in the same social destruction I described to YeamieWaffles.
It scares me. And yet it has saved me many times. Rarely do I allow my anger to do what it wants. I've seen too many people do irreparable damage both to themselves and others by indulging in their anger. But I do allow it to save me when I need it. Like the rape. And when I was stalked by a guy at work. And when that girl followed me home from school and threatened to throw a knife in the back of my head. And when my mom and dad get a little too abusive.
I wonder if I'll ever learn to trust this side of me. Or at least accept it. That would be a change I'd like to see.
Well you do have to accept that part of you. For the most part it's the survival instinct. When it comes down to it a lot of us would rather survive ourselves than go through some kind of pain so that someone else might not have to. From the sounds of it you would have had to allow yourself to be raped in a way more disastrous than you were, and no one should have to put themselves through that. I have that cold streak myself and it's actually one of those things people rarely believe about me.
ReplyDeleteBut in the end it is a part of you and if you don't accept it, then there's nothing ahead for you but self loathing and you're already there in a way.
I think most people have that side of themselves. Perhaps it has been amplified lately because of your recent experiences.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds more what you are describing is a self-defense mechanism rather than you having an evil side. Whenever I let my anger get the best of me, I always regret it. It usually doesn't do any good to blow your top anyway. But I can state that for every situation, because there are definitely times when the burst of energy you get from anger may save you. Revenge is usually never a good impulse though. Usually, the Universe or God or whatever it is, has a way of punishing bad people, so being consumed with revenge is only wasting energy that could be put to better use. At least that's what Zoroasterisk Fungfucius told me.
ReplyDeleteKyla don't you dare beat yourself up for anything that happened in regards to this guy! You went through a terrible experience and he's the sick one, it doesn't make you a bad person, it makes you a good person who had something terrible happen to her.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit that when I read that comment myself I did see a cynical and slightly wry side to you that I had no idea existed. I'm the same, sometimes I stray and gravitate towards evil or scheming. Sometimes, especially when I'm wronged I'll come up with manipulative and it's something that I wrestle with in myself. I think that you're the same Kyla and that's what stops you from being evil, you realise right and wrong and at the core you're a wonderful and good person, at least that's what I see. Your actions in regards to your ordeal are perfectly acceptable, to be honest after what you've been through you're justified to react however you want to to what happened.