Yesterday, I hid down Beth’s side of the bed while she was in the loo. I needed something downstairs, so left the hall light on (as I always do!) and she might have heard me on the creaky staircase. Then I got into position and waited, pressed hard against the side of the bed that’s hidden when you enter the room. I held my breath and tried to stifle my evil little chuckles, imagining that I was hiding from something scary to better keep myself quiet. I covered myself slightly with her hoodie from the floor.
My hope was that she’d get on the bed from my side, next to the door, so I could reach up and grab her! But she started to walk round the bed, so I had to react immediately: I sat up and shouted, raaarh!
She jumped, squeaked in horror, I was hoping for a bigger reaction but her face said it all. She was not a happy bunny, still startled like she’d been caught in the headlights! I suddenly felt terrible, hugged her, said I was sorry, and gave her space to tell me off. You’re a dick, she said, and right she was. But it was fun, silly, and we bonded over my playful malevolence and her putting up with me being so daft and naughty again.
Today I was watching 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. They had a lightning round, where Jimmy Carr has buttons he can press to shock the contestants. Jon Richardson was the most frazzled, visibly exhausted by the whole ordeal after it was over. He announced that the points don’t matter anymore, and joked that they should all band together to shock Jimmy instead, with some truth to his joke evident in his expression. But I was thinking about how well they were doing, taking the shocks in good humour, not getting riled up, like I feel I would.
And I do think I would. It’s not nice to admit this to myself, but I reckon it would make me angry and hostile. I think about stuff like this a lot, the automatic reactions in me, which feel innate now.
I want to be better. I don’t like being someone who is quick to anger, quick to place blame on others, quick to become hostile. So I try to examine myself when it happens. Dig into why I’m like that. See what variables I can change: which parts are constant, and which parts of me are malleable. There’s a lot of dead ends, but quite often, I find something I can improve on.
Sometimes I’m in a great place in life, and there’s not much to change. When I’m happy, things don’t bother me as much, so I don’t turn to that familiar hostility. But it’s still there, buried, waiting to come up again when things start to slide somewhat. So it’s like the squirrel who didn’t save up for the winter, then starved: If I ignore my chances to get better when things are going well, then inevitably I’ll be so much worse off when things aren’t as warm.
I have an idea for a piece. It’s only a tiny fragment so far, but it goes like this: I’m walking from Beth’s to the train station. My mood is hostile, as I’m tired and there are strangers everywhere so I have to protect myself. Suddenly, one of those strangers smiles at me. And I melt. The hard shell I was wearing falls away, and I remember who I really am. I smile back, and keep smiling for the rest of the day.
I used to work with a guy called Tony. He was the manager at an Oxfam I volunteered at briefly. He was a hostile man by default. I remember walking through town with him once, and after we’d passed a group of young women along a narrow path, he told me how he’d got into his shoulder barge position, pushing them out of the way like a snow plough. He was proud of this.
That moment has stayed with me for a long time. It appalled me, and I was shocked by how brazenly he had admitted what he’d done, revealing what a bleak and dangerous version of reality he lived in. I stopped working there shortly after, and didn’t speak to Tony again. People like that always end up pushing others away, and in his case, this was literally true.
Because Tony was no longer wearing a shell. It had become him. If there was a true Tony, a soft and squishy person at the heart of his angry actions, then they’d long since disappeared, absorbed into the persona he’d dedicated himself to cultivating.
He went on, later that same day, to leave an even worse impression on me, during the after-work drinks I’d agreed to. I had to sit and listen to him complain for what felt like hours. Everything was terrible, everyone was against him. Anything good was made bad. That’s when I realised how little there was to him, and how toxic he really was. I was exhausted and eventually excused myself, but thankfully, I had some friends who were out that evening. Good people who aren’t obsessed with fighting. I joined them, and ended up having a lovely night, with these friends who had, and made, space for me to exist, in a way that makes sense to me. Space to feel, to experiment, to be accepted. Space to show them how much I cared for them too.
Tony had also told me, while I worked there, about a letter of complaint he’d received. A women who’d been in the shop didn’t like what she’d overheard him say: He’d told one of the volunteers, a person who happened to be visibly disabled, that they should “go back to Broadmoor”, a place known as being a lunatic asylum at one point. Actually, I don’t remember which hospital he mentioned, but the vibe he was getting at was clear: That they belonged in a mental institution. It was intended as a joke, but it was too extreme to be said on the shop floor, to a vulnerable person, and the woman was alarmed to hear it.
Tony refused to accept what she said in her letter. The woman’s intention was to make sure that Tony’s target was safe, seeking resolution. But Tony’s intention was to protect his own ego, and he was willing to fight for it with everything he had. He wrote back, arguing with her. Telling her how right he was, and how his intentions were good actually, despite his angered response revealing the ugly truth of who Tony really is. The woman was right to be concerned, as this was indeed a sign of something bigger.
But Tony didn’t see that. He used every excuse he could think of: He knows the target better than anyone. His behaviour should be acceptable in this day and age. It’s none of her business anyway, how dare she say anything to him, who is she to be calling him out, etc. Anything he could do to craft a narrative that avoided self awareness.
I tried to talk him out of the reply. It doesn’t matter, I’d said; consider the repercussions, I’d asked. But he couldn’t let it go. Any sign that he was wrong, in any way, would have forced him to confront himself, to be vulnerable and doubt his actions, and that was simply not possible. He couldn’t let the shell drop, unable to comprehend anything but a full-scale war. His cruel and callous reply to her was escalated by the woman, who reported it to his higher-ups. Tony was suspended shortly after.
There were moments where I felt sympathy for Tony. But that eroded away, as he showed me how much effort he puts into making his own life worse, all while demanding respect from everyone else and giving nothing back. How could I continue to care for someone like that? Who upsets the balance so intentionally? I respect people by default, so if that’s been lost, it’s because they’ve done something pretty drastic. It means they showed me that I can’t trust them.
You can only hug someone for so long while they’re stabbing you. Eventually you have to pull away.
I now accept that I shouldn’t have to force myself to respect someone. But it took some work on my part to get to this point. I always had this idea that all people deserve to be treated well, but when I came across people who actually didn’t deserve it, I couldn’t adjust. My idea of “people deserve respect” overrode the idea that some people are just awful. That some people trust no one, and so, respect no one.
That inability to see the danger in these people for what it is: It’s a trap I see other people still in, especially neurodivergent people who stick to rules more habitually, and may struggle to adopt new ones. Letting themselves get hurt because, on some level, they feel it’s the morally right thing to do. No matter how absurd it seems, no matter how much pain they’re in. They can’t let go of that first rule. They can’t give into something that feels cruel too, despite the cost to them.
I think Tony had a rule. It’s his main one, and it overrides all others: That his ego always comes first. Above anything else. Above decency, acceptance, empathy, morals. Nothing is more important than his rule: that he is not allowed to have his feelings hurt. Even superficially. Never mind that it heals afterwards. Never mind that he might actually learn something from it. Better to live in a spikey bubble that hurts everyone else, than risk being hurt yourself.
It’s an appallingly destructive mindset that I disagree with, with all my heart. Yet there’s still a part of me that believes in it, my over-exposure to that selfish rule still leaving its impression on some deep parts of me.
Also yesterday, I tried to hang a picture. I’ve bought a few art pieces (a canvas, an expensive print, a large original sketch, among others), and paid to have them framed. Some of the frame jobs cost more than the artwork! My idea was for an art wall in my living room. The pictures had been on the floor for a while now, maybe a couple of months, just waiting to be put up. Yesterday was the day, I decided spontaneously.
I was tired though. We both were, me and Beth, as we’d just watched Wind in the Willows at Williamson Park, with Archie (my wonderful teacher from acting class) playing the role of Weasel. It was brief, but we were both tired nonetheless, perhaps due to going with Andrea (Beth’s best friend), her new partner Steve, and all of their kids.
Beth had stayed over the night before, which gave me another opportunity to work on being less grumpy in the morning. I think I’m getting better at it, and Beth now gives me a bit of space too. It’s a shame, because I don’t really want space, but I guess I really do need it. That seems like a constant, an unchangeable variable: my need for a moment of calm before we chat or do something in the morning. There are variables there that I can control though, and I’m working on them, alongside all the other things I’m attempting to improve in myself. My current goal in the morning is to avoid the spiky thoughts that keep cropping up. The rude judgements. Jumping to blame others for the intensity of own my feelings. I think that leads to a lot of the grumpiness. So I’m working on shunning those dark thoughts. I can’t stop them from starting yet, but I can hold myself back instead of feeding into them. After a while they pass, whereas before, when I’d embrace them, they’d take over all of my thoughts and leave me rattled, tired and bitter for the next hour.
I pushed through the tiredness of that day, with my desire to finally see my pictures hung being just strong enough to override my desire to just chill. I’d bought some picture hooks and nails, and tried to hammer one into the wall. The nail bent, the wall got chipped, and almost no progress was made. Beth asked to try. I found that frustrating, because I wanted to see if I could do it, but I’m trying to embrace help from others, so I handed the hammer and nails over to her. Another bent nail, and she admitted defeat. I then had one last attempt myself. A third bent nail then, splintered paint and plaster, and barely a few millimeters of actual penetration. Beth said, perhaps we’re hammering into brick, and I think she was right. But on that third nail, as I was simmering in frustration, the feeling of disappointment and failure threatened to drown me. All the money I’d spent was potentially wasted. My hope for an art wall was sinking away, all because I couldn’t hammer a nail. I was devastated, and my black feelings were eating me raw, consuming me.
I mumbled something. I do mumble my words sometimes, but most of all when I’m stressed, an attempt to communicate and bridge the gap back to humanity, to reconcile the dreadful tension building up in me. Beth repeated what she thought I’d said, requesting clarity, which normally means I need to repeat myself and tell her what I’d said again. But that’s a big trigger for me. I don’t know why, I haven’t figured it out yet, but I hate repeating myself. In my weakened state, I snapped at her, repeating myself loudly and clearly. A mundane statement made vicious by my delivery. I hated myself for it, but it had come out before I was aware of it.
I do not like that I’m like this. I am not proud of my anger, I am disgusted by it. I am not writing this to excuse myself, I’m talking about it to try and improve it. I can’t change everything at once, but each little tweak can contribute, over time, to massive positive changes in me. Baby steps towards being a person who doesn’t hurt others.
The best approach, in my experience, is to practice in small, safe ways. Like a kind of immersion therapy. In this case, I can find an opportunity to repeat myself while I’m doing well, and go ahead with it, embrace it. Become familiar with that little discomfort, so that I can break though it. If I can avoid getting frustrated in that way when I’m OK, by training myself to do so, then I could be so much better when things are harder. I can vaccinate myself against my own internal toxicity.
I haven’t mentioned the why of all this yet. Why reflect? Why cast doubt upon yourself? Why improve? It feels self-evident, but the most crucial thing here really is your motivation. Tony wasn’t motivated to change, so he only got worse. But I am motivated. So let’s speak on that for a moment.
I do not want to be that person. I don’t want to be the man who snaps at his partner, at someone he’s supposed to love. And I absolutely don’t want my partner to be the woman who feels no choice but to accept that kind of behaviour.
Ultimately, I don’t want to imitate my mother. Instead, I want to shed all the horrible lessons she taught me, about how to handle bad feelings. They are not things you use to hurt others; they are things you’re supposed to rid yourself of, like flushing your waste down the toilet. You’re not meant to bag it up and keep it. And you’re certainly not meant to fling it at other people.
And this is especially important with Beth. I am the first good partner she’s had, after a ceaseless string of arseholes, and after being heavily bullied at school. An experience mirroring my own, except that I’ve also had the opportunity to feel genuinely cared for by the companions who have loved me.
It’s our responsibility to look after each other. That’s a responsibility that everyone has. Which means that it’s my responsibility to teach her that it’s not OK to be awful, despite what she’s learned before. Or from her perspective: That you shouldn’t have to accept it when it’s done to you.
I think there’s something more to that idea, of being good to each other, and the responsibility we have there. Because some people simply don’t believe in that. And for most of my life, I didn’t realise this. I wonder if that’s what got me hurt so often, my misguided belief that everyone wants to be good. And I wonder, is that how you can tell which people have the capacity for change? Because if you don’t think that we should be decent to one another, then why be better? Maybe that’s why it’s so scary when someone is rude to waiters, the infamous sign of a terrible person: Because it’s a signal that there’s something bigger there, something fundamentally missing in them. That they could hurt you too, and not only would they not care, but they’d do it again.
But personally, I don’t think I have a choice. I have faced horrendous trauma in my life, courtesy of so many bad people. And I’ve spoken about it. Complained, vented, talked, however you want to phrase it. But how I can say that it was wrong for them to treat me so poorly, if I myself go on to do the same thing? We presume that the things that someone stands up to are, in fact, the things they are against. But to stand against something you’re helping to perpetuate? How can I spread misery, while claiming that it’s wrong to inflict it?
That would make someone a hypocrite, revealing the truth that they only cared when it happened to them specifically. That it’s the act of defiance done against their ego that really bothered them, not the action itself. Perhaps it’s not obvious in the moment, but it’s lying by omission. And I hate liars.
I know it takes work to be better, even if you have that motivation. And it can feel unfair that some people just have to work harder. But I don’t think about it in terms of fairness. Otherwise I’d get distracted by that idea, which would cause me to resist the change needed to balance things out. The moment you think “well that’s just not fair, and I’m going to focus on how unfair it is” is the moment you lose focus on improving things.
Because in the end, it’s so much easier to just change, to let go of that hostility. It takes a lot of effort to hold on to bleak thoughts, to wage these battles in your mind, to keep yourself in a state where you’re always ready to fight. It’s exhausting, physically and mentally.
But it’s like exercise. Learning to run a mile can feel impossible at the start. But eventually you can train yourself well enough that the struggle to overcome it becomes a distant memory, and instead, you’ve already set your sights on a bigger target. Because now you’re strong enough to do so.
I spoke to Beth after. I’d already apologised some short time after snapping at her, but I still felt it hanging over us, unresolved, the pain buried as deep as possible in her, instead of being brought to the surface and used as fertiliser for growth.
She said it’s OK, that she had accepted it. That she’s used to it. She didn’t use that phrase in particular, but I knew that’s what she meant, having heard her use that same sequence of words to conclude so many terrible things that she still experiences: Feeling like she should come second; feeling judged; feeling self-critical. She’s used to it.
I told her that I really am sorry for the way I spoke to her. She told me I hadn’t meant it, that I hadn’t meant to wound her, that it was just an expression of frustration in the moment. I sat with that briefly, then protested: But I think I did mean to hurt you, I said, revolted with the facts of the event that I had caused, but pushing past my own ego. All that had happened was that we’d tried to hang a nail and been unsuccessful, yet I had raised my voice to her with intentional cruelty.
I told her, it’s not OK for me to talk to her like that. She rejected that idea initially, still believing that she deserves such treatment. And I said to her: But it’s not OK though, is it? And she saw herself, I think, through my eyes, as I see her. An image of a woman who doesn’t have to accept that awful level of treatment, who doesn’t make allowances for shitty people’s actions. She saw that I wanted her to not be OK with it. So that I’d be forced to take accountability. Something she wasn’t used to seeing in the people she’s been close with. It’s not OK, is it, I asked. I guess not, she replied.
I wanted to show her that it was OK to tell me off. To ask me to be better. That this was safe.
She won’t ask me to change directly, I need to tell myself off. But little by little, I think she’s coming around to the idea that she’s allowed to feel more than the miniscule slither of personal identity that the various terrible people across her past have tried so hard to enforce in her.
I’m here to encourage, not discourage. I want to see her, not the trauma that people have previously inflicted on her.
Later that evening, as I washed plates and she dried them (because she hates getting her hands wet, and I find drying to be a dreadful experience), we talked about children and parenting approaches. We’re together, Beth and me, because we click so well. We did from the start, right away. We share so many similar sentiments. The details of our ideas might be slightly different, but we agree on so many of the fundamentals that our discussions are always conversations, and never arguments about differences of opinion. We each respect the things the other feels and thinks, and when we talk about our ideas, neither of us tries to “win” or out-do the other. We’re there to learn and connect, not own things. Especially with theoretical ideas, such as the approaches we’d have with our own children. We were glimpsing into the future and could envision how, if we did have kids together, then we’d compliment each other, in the same way we do currently, and our combined parenting style would probably reflect that. No need to dominate when you feel safe enough to be heard.
This whole piece came about from an epiphany, which I realised while watching that Countdown show, riding the vibes it provided. I thought about my reaction to Beth being scared, and a little pissed at me! I had held her. I told her I was sorry for making her jump. I waited for her to speak. I let her call me a dick, and didn’t refute that or argue against it. And I don’t think I had that growing up.
I was faced with someone who was a dick, constantly, and scared me often. But I wasn’t hugged afterwards. I wasn’t given the space to vent. I wasn’t encouraged to move past it. I just had to hold on to it. Let it fester. Wait for it to happen again. I fought against it as much as I could, but inevitably, I too felt like I deserved it. That it’s just what I had to get used to. That it was, in some way, acceptable to be treated that way.
And I was made to feel that way by design. In a heightened state, I was an easier target. Faster to get a rise out of. The best shortcut to an argument is to start it with someone who’s already angry, so I was moulded into a person who was always angry.
But that feeling I had in that epiphany: That’s what I want to hang on to instead. Not the awful treatment from before. Not the negative affirmations. No, I want to remember that moment where someone was a dick, and it was OK to admit it. Where we hugged. Where we laughed about it afterwards. Where it brought us closer.
I am not a mirror to my mother.
I am a mirror of my own making.
And I choose what I reflect.