The Addict, The Liar, The Coward
about me
If there’s one thing I am, it’s an addict. If there’s another thing I am, it’s a liar. If there’s a last thing I am, it’s a coward.
While these are not nice words, for me, they are true.
Some might tell me I should be talking more nicely to myself. I get the sentiment. Still, there are times when the truth must be said plainly in the words that best express them.
The Addict
Plant medicines, caffeine, recreational drugs, manic creativity, sex, video games, movies, books, food, collectables, spirituality, clothes, beauty goop… love.
These are just some of the things I have spent times of my life obsessing over. Truly obsessing. Wanting with no regard for the cost—apart from a casual dismissal and expertly crafted justification.
I have betrayed the dearest of friends over the pettiest things. Running off to satisfy base desires, rather than be there for them—or myself.
There is no low too low for me.
I’ve betrayed myself so deeply in pursuing addictions its truly hard to fathom. I have put myself in the most extreme and dangerous situations—finding a strange flow in the chaos—dragging those completely uncomfortable with this madness along with me.
I have been despicable many times over; great shames I have so much trouble facing.
This character trait, flaw, demon, what have you. It’s my greatest weakness.
I let desire control me completely. I seek to fill a hole inside with things that could never hope to fill it. The space where love for self is missing. The cavern in the rightmost part of my chest that hurts for love. The depths of pain within me that call out for another, over and over, to save it. Not realizing that my own heart so nearby—living right next door—is the saving grace it’s always sought outside. Sought for another to fill with their love. To hold me in a special way, or kiss me, or do the little things that I can’t seem to do for myself. To make that hole feel better.
So, I poorly try to fill this hole with bullshit I don’t need. That I know doesn’t make me happy. And I let myself become a slave to it. I betray myself to it over and over and over and over.
It’s who I am. Or at least, one part of me.
The Liar
It’s so much easier to just shave the hard edges off things—my mind likes to tell itself. As I witness a lie told. A justification long repeated internally, in spite of the clear witnessing of my own deceitful habits.
I’m just practical—I’ll tell myself as I see patterns of deception which make life ‘easier’. Which now, engrained so deep after all these years, I usually won’t even notice myself doing.
I do it to myself first and foremost. I lie to myself. I know it’s a lie, but I just let it sit there and it sinks into me.
A habit I remember forming as I planned stories to tell as a teenager. Coaching myself like a shady lawyer on how to explain things if cornered.
I’d love to know the amount of time I’ve spent crafting explanations over my lifetime. And also the percentage of times I never had to use that explanation.
I bet those numbers would be ABSURD.
And I hate liars.
I draw them to me with my own lies. Or I just see them in everyone because I hate this part of myself so deeply. Or we’re all liars, every one of us.
Curiosity is where truth is found. I don’t know any answers, clearly.
So, naturally, this self-hatred perpetuates to all others. It feels intrinsic to holding things against yourself that they will be projected onto others around you.
It’s the most human thing around; projection.
I believe all of us do it each day. Everyone—to the most enlightened.
Just because our projections are pleasant doesn’t mean they aren’t projections. It feels innately human.
But hey… maybe I’m projecting.
I digress. The lies I tell myself have been the catalyst for a lifetime of lies told to everyone else. To my dearest people.
Such petty things I have chosen to lie about. It just feels lazy when I look at it. The truth is more difficult to express. And often complicated.
The truth often reveals more about yourself to others than you want to.
If you came from a family or an era where your authenticity was a problem. You likely had to learn to betray yourself daily to survive. And lying may be a burden you share with me too.
Some people may not deserve the truth. Sometimes, it really is better to not bother, when you know that something has no space to be received.
While embodying a fountain of the barest truths is an admirable thought. Discernment may show that holding our tongue is often a wiser course.
There is quite often more truth in silence.
Still, why is it I lie to myself?
The Coward
I’m scared.
I’m scared that if I’m honest people will reject me. I’m scared that if I become free in a world of people in chains, I’ll die for it. And I’m scared to die.
This is the core of the cowardice behind my lies.
I’m afraid to be rejected.
I don’t even know how to explain why on this one. It’s my deepest victim wound.
The burden placed on boys in my era to step first. To be the brave one and make a move. It sucked. And it sucked real bad for me. I don’t know that I have a bigger hurt. Than reaching out over and over again and never finding someone to take my hand when I was a teenager.
With space. I think it comes from where I was trained to look. How I was taught to seek by the distorted kind of love I had around me.
That rejection fear is by far the deepest, and triggers the biggest hurts for me. I’m afraid of it—rightly.
It’s gotten to the place where it’s proven capable of creating mental instability. It deserves to be respected and seen as it is.
I have set my intentions to heal it for a long time now. I know I’ll get there. And I still find trust even when it gets to be too much to see laid out.
But somehow, I’m afraid that I’ll die for becoming free.
I think it comes from the one myth every person seems to know—the Jesus story—perpetuated throughout history under many names.
You will die if you become a free and authentically loving person.
But why am I’m afraid to die?
For me, even though I believe so deeply in a truth to there being a version of us that will continue to exist beyond time—fear persists that I will one day cease to be. That I will dissipate as a momentary flash of consciousness back into a void of darkness.
I’m afraid of this because I love being here. I love myself—deep down. And I love the fact that I exist like this.
Life was fun when I was a kid. Before I took the mantle of joining the forces of a broken civilization. While I was still protected in a container that lucky and privileged children, like I had been, are able to exist within. Not having to face reality until a later date. A beautiful lie.
In the process of this lie crumbing around me, as I aged into my teens, cowardice was born.
Too much to face. All at once. Getting crushed by rejection. And nobody knew how to talk about what really mattered. Everyone was ignoring the true mystery of the world around us to drive cars around and get stressed out.
Welcome to the real world. Time to get ready to chase a job and a car and whatever superficial success looks like to you.
Well, shit. That’s a pretty good distraction. From the fact that none of us are even pretending to care about the mystery of what we are and exist within.
What are we a part of?
We live in a mythless era. Pick and choose. Create your own. Or better yet, don’t! Watch those Fast and the Furious movies back-to-back and order a pizza and chill your ass out.
That sounds fun to me, to be honest, so don’t get me wrong.
But still! You get the point.
We need to understand why we’re here and the broken myths of bygone eras morphed by suppressive forces to disempower and manipulate the ignorant is no longer—has never been—the answer.
We need to build new myths together. Knowing, we all have the answers inside us. Each one of us a piece, needing each other to complete the puzzle of who we truly are.
And if I can heal my broken ass. I believe in anyone.
So now… Daphne
Here I am. Injured and bleeding. Limping across the finish line to freedom. Going bankrupt FOR SURE. Taking it a day at a time. Seeing all the scars I carried through the storm which remain in this body—all the lies I let become a part of me.
Seeing how I cling to and chase things that do not serve me.
Seeing how I twist things and make my own truths.
Seeing how afraid and alone I really feel.
Yet finally alive as me. Finally feeling free in a strange and broken way. Ready to carry on and make the very best of every precious moment I have here.
To do things my way. For once. And fucking love it.
