Self-Flagellation As A Pastime Activity

I watch a lot of movies. I watch a lot of tv on dvd because I like watching stuff all bunched up together. I watch too much tv, I admit. Last night I couldn't sleep so I watched The Da Vinci Code. This was the second time I attempted to watch this movie...this time I actually made it through to the end. The book was better, but I digress.

I'm sitting there watching that creepy monk-dude Silas beat the sh!t out of himself with a cat o'nine tails or whatever it is and thinking "Man, that's stupid." Today as I was beating myself up about something (as I often do, more than once a day) and I realized I was a practitioner of that creepy ritual. Not physically, of course, but mentally. Man, that's stupid.

Now, I know we all do this from time to time, but I have a highly specialized habit of setting expectations way too high just so I can come up short and beat myself up about it. I also like to think for other people so they can help me. By this I mean I somehow astrally project myself into someone else's mind and find all the horrible things they think about me - how I look, how I act, how I manifest some weird personal tic. Why beat up myself by myself. I can get someone else in on the action, too. It's a party!

Let's take roll call, shall we, of the top contenders in the litany of self-flagellation:

I'm fat.
I'm mean.
I'm impatient.
I'm lazy.
I'm stupid.
I'm not emotionally available.


I've been having "a long talk with Self" as my dear friend calls it and decided that after 35 years, it's time to break this habit. These tapes, as my therapist calls them, are worn out and have been unpopular for quite some time now. So unpopular, in fact, they are actually on vinyl.

The New Philosophy

This brings us to HT's new philosophy for the second half of this lifetime program (not to be confused with programs on Lifetime: TV for Women in Constant Distress): The "More Often Than Not" philosophy. In this philosophy, if I am doing something good for myself more often than not, I'm not allowed to beat myself up about it. For instance:

I'm fat : Well, guess what, lady, you're not the only one and you didn't get here overnight. So as long as you are eating healthy and exercising more often than not, you don't get to crap on yourself about this anymore.

I'm mean: Yeah, well, we all have our moments. As long as they are just moments and not a steady stream of anti-social outward behavior, you're not that bad.

You get the drift.

This does lead me to wonder what I am going to do with all the extra time on my hands now that I can't engage in self-flagellation as a pastime activity.

Antwone Fisher

I caught this movie on cable tonight. I vaguely remember reading the book before the movie came out in theaters. I’ve seen it a few times before, but it’s been long enough that this time I saw it with a fresh perspective. I’d forgotten how much I like it. It is based on a true story. It takes place in one of my favorite cities (San Diego) and centers around a young man in the Navy. I was in the Navy once. Sometimes I miss it…I miss the camaraderie, the security and the sense that I was doing something useful. Plus it has Denzel Washington in it and I would watch Denzel read the Cleveland Yellow Pages.

Anyway, this young man had a really hard life before joining the Navy. He was abandoned by his mother, abused by his foster parents and eventually thrown out on the streets to fend for himself. That’s when he joined the Navy. But his past, and his inability to come to terms with it, causes anger issues, which cause him to be faced with the possibility of being thrown out of the Navy. He works through those problems with the help of a psychiatrist (Denzel), who urges him to go find his family. He does…and faces the people who abused him and finds the mother who abandoned him. He also finds a large extended family who welcomes him with open arms and he finally feels like he belongs.

This post isn’t a movie review…I’m getting to my point.

He goes back to the psychiatrist to tell him that he found his mother. He says “I forgive her, but if I never see her again…”

When all hell broke loose with my father’s health, I had been in the middle of dealing with my (lack of) relationship with my mother. We have a bad past with things that happened that I thought I could never forgive her for. People would tell me “You can’t be angry with her, she did the best she could do at the time.” Bull. I felt she purposely did what she did to be hurtful and vindictive. I couldn’t let go.

Then I faced the possibility of losing one of the most important people in my life. The person who took me out of that bad environment and gave me the tools to live a better life. The person I’d looked up to for as long as I could remember. Suddenly, my biological mother was no longer important.

She is missing out. She doesn’t know the person I’ve become and she never will. She’s chosen to have our relationship end up this way. I am a good person and her life is emptier for not knowing me.

I forgive her, but if I never see her again…