Living Within Samsara

TRANSITIVE VERB: blamed , blam·ing , blames 1) To hold responsible. 2) To find fault with; censure. 3) To place responsibility for (something): blamed the crisis on poor planning.

Have you ever known a person or people who seem to be quite obsessional about using the word “blame” particularly in their assignment of it? Yes. Have you been this sort of person yourself? Oh Yes. And does it make you want to pull your hair out of your head? (I’m turning bald.)

Last night was the first night I’d be going to a meeting in a couple of weeks. I hurt myself a few weeks ago and as a result have had physical - but getting honest, really more emotional - difficulty in leaving the house for extended periods.

[Couple that with isolation causing my E.D./B.D.D. mentality “i’m too fat/feel icky” and triggering this HSP’s former bout with agoraphobia…Oh I was ripe for a mess to obsess - and it did. Trying on clothes for maybe 45 minutes “nothing felt right” …and after hitting the 20 minute mark I knew I was in that familiar space - and I got scared, angry, frustrated…SO, I started changing clothes “harder”.]

Knowing it licked me, I went to my beloved and said “I can’t go - can’t find anything to wear.” At this point I was SO angry and frustrated. When the truth is, of course, my “disease” or “frailty” or “mind” really was just going crazy and I placed blame on something seemingly benign:: the fact I had “not a thing” to wear. [People unlike me seem to buy that - since I am a female, they seem to understand more readily I’m just “being a girl” - and I have been conditioned to say it and until recently I didn’t even know I was this way [E.D./B.D.D./Agoraphobic] so my conditioned response has always been the same and out of reflex I use it - yes, still.] Again, I cannot convey at how angry I was this was happening. When this happens, it spins and infects everything it touches…I go to people, when this happens, I trust…and if they know about this aspect of me they can say the right thing and I’m out of it…sometimes. This was one such time. All I needed was a nudge and I felt it.

My beloved looked non-plussed and several minutes later, conveyed I should go. It was, then, too late. I had to quell the crazies which, I had temporarily put on hold, as I had waited for my beloved to “help me feel better” by saying something helpful. The longer he said nothing the more intense my crazies got. Now it had turned to: “He doesn’t care. I am worthless. The computer is more important than I am.” etc. [See? My disease - and I call it that because it’s an unwelcomed intrusion into my otherwise happy life - will infect my thoughts of myself, other people, my mood, my brain processes, and my personality. Nothing is safe. It’s one painful fucker.]

Switching gears back to blame: According to my beloved, I had blamed him for not going. He wanted so badly for me to see I had blamed him and it wasn’t true. I tried explaining I did have an expectation he would be able to say something to help me but that no, I assigned no responsibility for my not going, on him. Getting right down to it, I have to accept responsibility for expecting too much from him. He’s not the sort of person who can help me when I am in pain. When I am good, it’s all good…but when I have an issue he can be quite the blank slate.

As a result of yesterday’s events I have noticed some people really have a need to blame or make another person wrong. Rather than seeking to understand where the other is coming from, they’re so bent on making the person see the error of their way/s that resolution cannot be achieved…at least not with me. Instead of seeking to understand, and thereby be helpful, some people end up controlling what they can understand - assignment of blame. I don’t blame them…[no pun intended]; it’s easier to do that than to spend time wanting to help someone escape from their torture chamber. I thank god every day I have more good days than bad and have escaped the hell of the easier softer way of “blame.”

I enjoy peace. It’s a necessity and I have been known to engage in peace at all costs but some relationships I have are not good at moving forward unless I admit to some untruths. People and their egos really have a way of draining me. I allow for people to think I blamed them [people will take on responsibility even if not assigned. i know this because i do this.] but i will not admit to something I did not do. Not out of prideful arrogrance - because some things just aren’t worth it - but out of respect for who I am.

It took me a long time to get to the place with myself that I am good enough. It took me a longer time to get to the fundamental of having my own truth. It took another recovery episode to get to the place of having the courage to stand in my truth. I am not going to let any average person, egomaniac or insecure person puppeteer me into going against myself on a fundamental level. Oh and yes, I mean even if the relationship must die because of it.

For years and years I tried to please. I tried to please you because you would fill up my bucket if I pleased you correctly. Yes, I lived my life around some diseased people and my having my own disease well…you can see the mess. And in my perfect world I’d still be doing it…

Conundrum: If the person I hold responsible for filling up my soul’s nutrition decides to be a fallible person [how dare they?] and starts calling me terrible names [”selfish,” “self-centered,” “mean”] then what happens to my soul’s nutrition if they are who is supposed to be Samsara’s bucket-filler? Yes, so then I wither up on the inside and I go through a sort of death.

Don’t get me wrong. I blame. I do blame. But like I said…it’s now an uncomfortable philosophy that only has left remnants of a past long ago. Blame does nothing. It is a disease of the mitote. It is a massage into past injuries and old wounds. I could blame my mother for many things that have happened to me. I could blame my dad for my problems with men. I could blame my sister for the break-up of my marriage. I could do all these things and be left with the huge prize of…broken relationships, further misunderstandings, and a denial of my own responsibility. The truth: My mother did the best she could do. My dad is an active alcoholic doing the best he can do. My sister is a narcotic addict doing the best she can do. And I am responsible for me.

I will not disown them for being in their own version of hell. I will understand they each may have hurt me or caused me pain but the responsibility of my hurt or pain is my own. Blaming them will not erase my pain. Going to them, forcing an admittance of what they did will not further their ascent into a peaceful spirit. The people, if at all, would have to get to that themselves. I am not god and I cannot force a recognition in someone. If they’re unable to stand in their current truth, they may wax and wane a version of makeshift value that they would hope appeased me [it wouldn’t. language of the heart would prohibit my buying it.] but fundamentally, they would be in a situation of going against themselves and who they currently are.

Blame is ugly. It’s an ugly word. We place expectations on people who are incapable, perhaps, of giving us what we need or want at some particular time and then we blame them for it. I make a move for acceptance. I make a move that we use it for the knowledge it is. Last night I had an expectation my beloved could help me out of my abyss. He could not. I blamed nothing. I did not even blame my disease. I just became increasingly angry he did not seemingly give a shit…or that’s what my mental state was telling me at the time. He made matters worse, not better, when he tried forcing me to say I blamed him for not going.

Then we had a problem all night. He blamed me for not saying I blamed him. He then blamed me for not talking to him. He blamed me for his needing sleep and unable to get any. He then blamed me for “treating him like shit” all day. I told him he was caught up with “blame” and he said “No I’m not.”

He said I was selfish and self-centered when I wanted to leave the house after he was in bed still blaming me. I wanted to leave the house because I could not bear the loneliness I feel when he has this attitude of intolerance toward me. He has this attitude about me quite often. [”Such and such was unacceptable.”] Then he screamed he wanted to break up and wanted me to move out.

I don’t blame him.

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