Out-Picture in Current Events

I know that I, like everyone else, tend to out-picture everything. What I see in Toni, my roommate, is what I see in myself. My old self, the old programming that I used to have which is still not separate from me. I hit rock bottom and took some time to myself to do some soul searching. Luckily, I didn’t wait until a midlife crisis to discover that all I did with my life was get good at pretending that pain wasn’t happening. You’re not hurting when you’re high, drunk, hooking-up, binge eating, having that affair, making those useless purchases, procrastinating etc. it was never the content that was making me miserable it was always the context. I was the change that I needed to make in my life which I did not have the courage to do.

Yesterday Toni spent the day in her room crying. Again. A part of me wants to console her but that would just enable her to keep being an epistemic pathetic disappointment. She is an emotionally incontinent adult-child. When we went for our last walk we discussed our political beliefs and various personal beliefs and my unpalatable opinions made her insecure. She has a kindergarten view of the world and cannot imagine a world where people are responsible for themselves and she believes that we all need to be parented. She is a true liberal. Personal responsibility is too high a concept for her.

The idea of manifesting is also too high of a concept for her. “Oh that’s not a real thing.” She said to me. That was cute because she thinks toxic thoughts, feels toxic emotions, creates toxic habits, makes toxic choices, creates toxic environments that nobody wants to be around and then she feels like a victim in life and then does things like spend a beautiful Saturday crying her eyes out. That’s manifesting. That’s her karma. Life is what you make it.

She acts too good for advice and feels that she can just continue to do things her way. You can’t fix a problem with the same thinking that created it. She is literally driving herself crazy. All she is doing is trying to change the content in her life instead of herself. She is trying to suppress her symptoms, which is something we’ve all been conditioned to do. We need to grow out of that kindergarten programming. Her depression and anxiety are symptoms that she is trying to self-medicate with booze and weed. She even started taking ADHD medication. I don’t think she needs petro-potions but that’s her choice. Her life stinks like garbage and instead of taking out the trash she is swatting at the flies to convince herself that the trash doesn’t need to be taken out. She fully commits to building an identity out of excuses.

She fell off the wagon and started drinking again this weekend and smoking her weed first thing in the morning and then all day. I saw her bottle and noticed that she had a glass before noon. She wasn’t setup to win, it’s just content that she is shuffling around to try and make herself feel better. She is not in control and is trying to create an illusion of control. She refuses to expand inward and develop some introspection. Some metacognition. She is trapping herself in a limiting belief that everything is happening outside of her.

The reason she feels like she is still a child and not an adult is because she is stuck in that mentality of needing to feel like it. She needs to feel like it to do it. Thus, she never feels like it so nothing happens in her life. Life is just happening to her and she won’t meet it half way. Nobody is coming along to do it for her she has to parent herself and do what needs to be done. Even if you don’t feel like it. Nobody is coming to tell her to get out of bed and walk it off. To make her eat better, to make her budget better etc. she does not have self-respect because she does not have self-responsibility. She needs to parent herself.

Codependent people like her are self-less. They do not have self-esteem, self-respect, self-determination, self-governance, self-responsibility, self-love, self-anything. These are people fully committed to their narcissism because they need to get all of that supply from others. She is feeling jaded because nobody is supplying her needs right now so I image that she is torturing herself by creating narratives in her head about who owes her and why. This is why she feels so short-changed and creates friction with everybody. Entitlement is a narcissist trait. These are obviously needs she never got in her childhood and so she is still trying to get them in her adulthood. Needs we can all supply ourselves but she is stuck being an adult-toddler because she refuses to grow.

It’s just so frustrating to watch and be around. She creates such a toxic environment and I don’t even want to be around it. People like her feel entitled to me being understanding and want me to fuel their self-pity. I recognize the covert narcissism now and I refuse to get sucked into it. These people are energy vampires and the world doesn’t owe them anything. However, I am sucked into it. I am her supply, I’ve been parenting her in this living situation. I’ve been her mother cleaning up after her. Getting the groceries etc. Doing all of the things nobody feels like doing. I do it because I am an adult and it needs to get done. It is starting to get under my skin that she does the bare minimum. I will probably blow up one day and verbally eviscerate her. What I did do was stop participating in her passive aggressive ways of getting me to be her supply of emotional needs. She normally cries in her room but she brought it to the living room for me to hear, she walks around sighing and moaning and whimpering trying to get me to respond. I do not. Misery likes company and what I do is act extra peppy around her which is the last thing anybody wants when they are in a mood.

It will just be the same old cycle. She will reject all advice and just vent about everything and then do nothing to make it better. She is an addict. Addiction is an attachment issue to something that makes life unmanageable. Some such attachments are obvious like substance abuse and sex addiction but others are more subtle. Like being attached to old habits and to limiting beliefs. She needs to twelve step program herself but she gets stuck on step three. Step one is admitting that you are fucked up. Step two is admitting that you can be not fucked up, this one establishes a faith in something/someone higher than oneself. Step three is admitting that you cannot, on your own, unfuck yourself. This is where most people tap out because this means that you need help. You cannot unfuck yourself because you are too you to do it. Your thinking, your ways, will keep getting the same results. Instead she commits to being stubborn and ignorant like a child. It’s so frustrating to watch because it was so frustrating to experience when I was in her shoes.

I had to face up to myself, admit that I was the problem all along. I was a co-creator and participated with everything that happened in my life. I had to shatter my victim narrative and illusion of control. Our brains are lazy and do not want to perform the cognitive gymnastics of building new fundamental beliefs and habits so we experience cognitive dissonance and self-sabotage. It is a battle of the ego. We identify with that ego and as that ego but programmed people do not recognize this because they have never expanded inside of themselves to discover that we are not our mind, body or emotions. There is something inside of us waiting to wake up. I don’t like the term spiritual awakening but that is what it is. It’s a beautiful thing to discover but it is hell to grow it. You die many times over. I just wish Toni had the courage to do it.

The way she sees the world is the way she sees herself. I am starting to recognize that for myself. I am on my own journey with that one and I have to battle my own programming and ego. Push through my own fucked up ways. I have mapped out my thoughts and I have developed my metacognition and introspection so I know when I am committing to my own fucked up ways and I am honest with myself when I do it. Blah, whatever. She works today, I need to clean the dishwasher and the stove and oven etc. It’s gorgeous outside, it is my favorite season. I’ll see if Bruce wants to go for a walk at our favorite spot. I did some baking yesterday and today I want to make my hot sauce and do some meal prepping. Anyway, on with it then.

Edit
Actually, Toni is stuck on step two. She cannot see a version of herself where she is not fucked up. She cries because she has panic attacks about it. She believes that things will always be this way for her. That things will never get better and she will always be miserable and she is right because that is what she will always continue to create for herself. She is on her own journey and I love her but I can’t help a person who will not help themself. She is very short-sighted because she cannot see past the pain. The majority of us are short-sighted these days, during this apocalypse (revelation) but this too shall pass. Faith is not easy to have right now. I struggle to have faith also but I need to remain in control of myself and not build an illusion of it. We are all tougher than we think.

Last updated October 03, 2021