“What did I do wrong?” These were the words in my head as I lay in bed this morning, trying to decide whether 4:50 am was too early to get up or not. A kookaburra became the judge in that matter, as it landed on the fence outside my bedroom window and laughed. How on earth do you replicate a kookaburra’s laugh on paper? Bwuh hahahaha? Bwuh bwuh bwuh bwuh uh uh uh? I have no idea. I was awake anyway but debating if I attempted to get up now, instead of trying to go back to sleep for a while, whether I would regret that decision come dinner time tonight. Did it really matter, given that I’m on holiday anyway and could snooze later if I had to? Clearly, the kookaburra thought it was the right time to be up and moving. Thankfully it moved on relatively quickly before the terrible things I was plotting to do to it in my head could come to fruition.
The words, though, they didn’t move on. They were stuck solidly in my mind, the way words do when I know I have to write about them. What did I do wrong? This is what I automatically think whenever something happens to a friendship. What did I do wrong? What I was pondering this morning is why I always think anything that happens is a result of something I said or did. That I took a wrong step, said a taboo word, or showed something of myself that sent the other person running.
It is not the first time I’ve thought these words, but it is the first time I’ve considered the reason. Because I’m conditioned to accept blame. Because I’m used to having people’s messes dumped on my head, even though every relationship involves two people, if not more. Because a psychologist who was doing the wrong thing by me told me I was ‘displaying my dysfunction’ when I questioned motives. Because I have worked in places were wrong is disguised as right, and everyone toes the line to not be the next target. Because I come from a family where people shut down and refuse to discuss their hurts, making it other people’s problem while they wonder what happened.
I know some people will be horrified that I wrote these words, but this is how monsters grow – in the dark, left alone because nobody wants to expose them. If it is wrong to say that sometimes people put up with things that are not right or healthy, because they’ve been conditioned to see what is unhealthy as normal, then surely that says something about society, that it won’t let people admit truth. This is my truth.
A Glorious Mess 