So, in recovery, I get to practice not telling people about themselves, under any circumstance, with the exception of my children. This, I can not yet resist, even when I’d like to. Like, unless I am a person’s manager and trying to help them develop, there really is no wholesome reason to do so. In recovery, I also get to learn to NOT (participate in or enable) gossip, which means when someone upsets me, not only do I tell them, when to do so is constructive and necessary, I shall not seek comfort and alliance by detailing for others the wrongs I feel were committed. Avoiding gossip feels easier for me than resisiting urge to enlighten a person–LOL. There are times when I must discuss an upset in order to process it, I share with a trusted other, with the purpose and intent: to work through it and to find relief and acceptance. Acceptance, being, I accept that the thing happened and also that I am powereless over it and dont fucken like it.
So with my painful haircut situation, I am struggling. Like maybe I do not publicly post about his conduct, but share photos of my hair before he handled me, the picture of what I requested, which he agreed to, and the photos of his results. I feel I owe it to women in my area. It is both the most and the least I can do.
I share here about hurtful schemes and maneuvers by my sister and the father of my boys, mostly about my sibling for reasons similar to why I will in fact post my experience with this local stylist. I’d bet money that since I began sharing about her unwholesome affiliation with my sons’ father, that she has begun treating each of her sister in laws and her one niece better (less alienating) than she had for the previous two decades, like being watchful of her step– As well as my aunt and any one with whom she works. I still cringe as i think of her glee-filled story about a woman named Allison whom she enjoyed shunning and reducing and then shrieked with laughter when Allison crashed her car into an ambulance on her last day of work.
Surely, it would feel less comfortable and safe to attempt, in any way to systematically diminish, undermine and shit-talk people(who frustrate her), as she has before…I know the details —only because of her smug sharing of them, with me, as either recreational(for her) gossip or as an intended warning shot to me. Either way, while I was unable to spare myself or my children, others may now benefit a reduced probability of similar underhanded mis-treatment by her. There are likely better ways to do this, but for now, it is the best I can do. Creating a detailed account of my experience of her behaviors is a public service.
I can’t undo or unknow the damage(to more than just my hair) by the stylist, I will do my part to prevent a similar upset for someone else. At first, I felt fearful and ashamed. Like awwww—poor Maggie—the common variable in all of her own pain. Because that is what abusers groom you and others to believe. It is factual that abused people frequently continue to show up for and stay for abuse. It is not a coincidence. Equally true– Even if I were a giant piece of shit, I do not cause or earn or deserve abuse. There is one thing that makes a person abuse… ***that they are an abuser. Only an abusive person would disagree. Jilan Catherine Ghoneim Whitney
And to clarify, before recovery, I too practiced abusive behaviors–exactly as I had learned, fully believing that if a person was upsetting or displeasing enough, that they earned and deservedcaused me to do or say the harmful things. Like I 100 percent was confident that: My harmful actions were brought on only BY THEM. They were responsible!
It is what I knew. I have not chosen to do or say abusive things for 13 years– since learning to do better…not deliberately, anyway. I have surely reacted in harmful ways and promptly made necessary amends. Reactions are hard to manage. Fortuantely, I have a spritual practice which teaches and allows me to amend and move on. My decision to recover from and object to the ways of my sister was a highly unpopular one. Which is fine, as I am not one to hustle for preference or popularity.
