The Self-Destruct Button

I let someone at work find out about my secret.

This blog, this site, is my secret.  Here in this blog, on this site, I reveal who I am warts and all and I know what I am doing could blow up in my face.  It isn’t that I am ashamed of who I am.  If I was independently wealthy I would have no qualms about who reads this but I am not independently wealthy.  I have a job and I need it to pay my bills and live.

This is not a world that encourages or rewards honesty.  If you have a facial flaw there is pressure to hide it with make-up.  Physical flaws can be covered or erased with the right clothing or plastic surgery.  People are horrified at the idea of exposing their weaknesses for others to take advantage of.

The world tends to take us at our own evaluation for the most part.  If you have no faith in yourself others will have none in you either.  If you think you are stupid you will be treated as if you are stupid.  If you think you deserve to be abused others will abuse you.  If you express any doubts about how competent, capable, infallible you are others will lose respect for you and have no confidence in you.

There is a fine balance, of course, too much self-esteem is recognised for the fake it is.

In this blog I tell things about me that most people usually don’t tell strangers.  It’s not really anyone’s business what my personal flaws, failings, trauma’s and struggles are and it’s the height of arrogance to think this psychological strip show could really do a blind bit of good to anyone else.

I’m not the sort of person to talk about myself much in real life.  I have learned people much prefer to be listened to than talked to.  On the other hand, I have also learned a lot of useful things, things that have made it possible for me to go from being a person who felt her existence was a huge mistake to someone who believes there is a reason for her life.

This blog is my attempt to share what I have learned so it is available to anyone who can find help or hope in my story.  I’m writing it for me in one way.  For the me I used to be many years ago.  I wish this blog had been available to me when I was fifteen!  It would have helped me so much if I could have found the information, the examples, the case study I am presenting here.

The only other way to present this stuff would be to use the case studies of people I have treated but that would breach confidentiality.  The only life I have the right to use as a case study is my own life.

I know I am exposing too much of myself – far too much.  It puts me at risk of losing my job and the respect of anyone who reads it.  It also opens me up to all sorts of criticism and attack and, as my co-worker pointed out, I could end up being a target for all sorts of things like a stalker or an assassin.  I just don’t know of any better way to make this stuff come to life for people than to present it as a case study.

My co-worker said I needed to remove anything that would breach the confidentiality clause in my employment agreement and anything that would allow someone who does not know me to find me physically.

She’s right of course.  I thought I had done that but she pointed out things I had not thought of so I have edited the offending entries.  I will be much more careful what I write as far as those two things go in future.

My co-worker does not have internet access at home and doesn’t like the internet.  She is unlikely to bother to try and find the site or read the entries but there was someone else there when we were discussing it.  I don’t know how much he heard or took notice of nor whether he will find the site.  He may find it and tell others about it and he may not.

As a victim of childhood abuse I, like so many, developed a tendency to push a button labeled “self-destruct” any time things were going well for me.  If I had a good thing going I would always do something to ruin it.

I have overcome that tendency in many ways.  I control my negative self-talk as much as possible, I try not to react without thinking things through, I don’t quit jobs or dump people because I am afraid I am going to lose them any more.  I’m nice to myself and try to nurture myself these days.

So why am I performing a psychological strip show on the world-wide-web when I know it could result in the total collapse of my whole world in every conceivable way???

I guess it’s because I know there are a lot of other people out there who have things like a “self-destruct” button and they don’t know about it.  If they read this entry they will know such a thing exists.  They will be able to compare their experiences with what I have written here and recognise they may have such a button too.

Once they know about the darn thing they can work on avoiding the habit of pressing it so their worlds don’t have to keep collapsing.