Super Powers

This post really doesn't have much to do with anything in particular. I suppose you could connect it to recent events and glean some sort of meaning, but that would be your experience and what you need to see. Still, don't let that keep you.

One of the advantages of growing up in a household where I could go from "safe" to "not safe" at the drop of a hat was that I got really good at reading people. Like, really a lot. When people say random things that don't correspond to what they mean at all, I know exactly what they meant to say. When people I care about can't say anything at all, they don't really have to. I've since trained myself to back out of peoples' heads because 1) it freaks them out and 2) I'm not really serving anyone. Sure, if it's a delicate situation having an extra measure of empathy is helpful. I remember in a class on German History in college we were watching a video of Hitler, and there was an elder woman in class who'd grown up right in the middle of his psychosis. She was sitting on the other end of the room, far behind me in the dark and I remember getting hit with waves of grief. I was thinking it was some part of my experience in having lived there many years later, but I squared with that and the feeling didn't go away. I literally felt like I was in the ocean getting hit with wave after wave of heavy sadness. I finally heard her sniffle a bit, knew exactly who it was, got up and sat with my arm around her for the rest of the film.
And yet I find it easy to second guess myself and assume that things I pick up are either not real or are not what they seem to be, that I'm projecting something on to them and so I try to play down their importance. I don't want to be completely irrational, after all.

I remember the moment that I realized that I had a great capacity for affecting people, and in that moment also realized that it was utterly unacceptable for me to use that for harm.

I was in high school, and after a particularly dramatic breakup in full adolescent glory, decided I needed to get revenge on my former boyfriend. I now realize that I was feeling hurt at having been so easily and quickly replaced, that it shook my own sense of value and worth to have been passed over. This was still when I thought that if I forced my heart into someone's hands they would take care of it the way I wanted them to because if I loved them that meant they had to love me in a way that made sense to me...right? I did mention having some....quirky role models didn't I?

At any rate, I needed my power back. I didn't know that I'd given it to him in the first place and all I really had to do was claim it. I needed revenge. I came up with a plan. In retrospect it's absurdly simple, playing on the insecurities of teenagers is like trying to catch a fish that's been batter fried and served to you on a plate with chips. But at the time it came so naturally and clearly that I was a little caught up in the power.

I had my friend, whom he did not know, hand him a note on which I had written only two words:
They Know.

It was *delicious.* It was awesome. It was breathtakingly effective. For two weeks my network of cohorts in on the joke kept watch over him in class and watches him empty every dusty corner and skellington of his psyche onto the floor and wonder in turn:
Oh my god.....it's ____, no, wait, it couldn't be that.....there's no way. No, it's not that.....OH my GOD it's____

He never mentioned any of this, but it seems watching this drama dance about on his face was highly entertaining. Finally, one girl took pity on him and let him in on the secret. At that point, I'd had my revenge, I felt utterly sated. I'd watched his mind prey on him just as mine had preyed on me in the dark hours of the night, and I felt completely even.
He, of course, never spoke to me again, and I don't blame him at all. I'd have probably made and exception to the "no hitting girls" rule for that kind of stunt. I'd managed to find a say to make him utterly miserable for a fortnight, and yet told myself that I hadn't really done anything but turn loose the beasts already there. That if he'd been a good person he'd have had nothing to worry about. The ease with which I devised, implemented and justified this little experiment kind of alarmed me. My mother is very good at this game as well, which is why I've never kept a journal, or been too public with my thoughts until now, years after I've cut myself off from her and have reclaimed my own power from the source. For years after I would see how she would counsel friends in her capacity as psychologist, and then use secrets confessed to her in the sacred space of healing as ammunition in arguments. It stunned me that someone who called themselves healer could so casually throw someone under the bus to preserve their own sense of "rightness."
The moment after I discovered that the prank was over, I decided that I was not ready for that kind of power, and that I would not use it unless it was very clearly helping everyone involved. I did slip up a few times, most of those still in high school. I was able to catch myself before I got more than a sentence or two deep and retreated very hastily. The feelings that accompanied those fuck-ups were very good motivators. I don't like to get in f2f arguments, and when something is bothering me I often let it sit for days until it simmers to the real issue so I don't let fly in a fit of passion with something that is harmful. Intense emotional states bring with them a certain clarity for me, and in arguments it's very tempting to reach for the nearest thing to throw...which is often the very last thing I would touch for someone I love. I like to avoid that sort of thing.