Reflecting

So I went into my room, smoked a cigarette, went on the pc and started writing... here it goes :


I don’t recall much from when I was little. I do remember one specific experience from when I was about 4-5 years old. I was sitting in my bath and just sitting and enjoying my own presence. I remember realising that I didn’t have any friends although at school I was friends with everyone. I was the kind of person that I everyone liked. I remember experiencing myself always floating between two worlds. The outer world where I would have to communicate with friends and family, do whatever it takes to fit in and then my own world, where I was just me be-ing me, just being present.
I enjoyed it a lot to be alone and I still do. I enjoy my presence and just being here. I’ve always known that whatever I do or wherever I am in whatever situation, I’d still have myself, I’d still be me, I’d still be there and that new moments keep on coming. I knew I could rely on moments. That it didn’t matter what I did or what terrible thing I would have to do in the future because I was here, now and everything was fine. In the moment everything is always fine. Everything just is. Just is what it is. I like that about moments. Moments don’t judge, moments don’t really pass. The moment is you living and breathing self.
I sometimes wonder (actually a lot) how I got so fucked up over the years. Why I did I made this outer world and my world of me just being present. Why did I separate those? Why didn’t I spread me being me all over the outer world?
Fear I guess.
I fear a lot and fear a lot of stuff. But I mostly fear people. I fear what people are capable of because I know I’m capable of it too. I probably fear myself the most. No, not probably… I really fear myself the most. And it terrifies me to know that one day I will express myself unconditionally. I fear my own self expression, my actions in the moment. I fear myself like you cannot imagine.
I did some really crazy stuff when I was little just to fit in. When I was in primary school there was this big pokemon rage that everyone probably knows. I was a “big fan”. I didn’t really like the pokemon series that much. I liked the idea of a fantasy world where you could do all these stuff with other animals and animals being your companions. Also, everyone at school was a big fan. And I could use that to fit in. And I did. I used all my money to buy pokemon stickers (back then it was a lot of money for me) without my parents knowing it and hiding them in my room and our garage so I could show everyone at school how cool I was and that I was okay and normal. I didn’t enjoy doing all that stuff. It freaked me out. But I did it anyway, because I wanted to be accepted and stay that way. I was afraid of being left alone. I saw what the other kids of my class did to other girls and boys that didn’t fit in. They were really mean. And I was mean with them. I was a very emotional kid, and I still am I guess, now it just doesn’t show that much anymore. I cried when somebody shouted to me, I would cry when I said something wrong during class, I would cry when I failed a test, I cried when somebody would say something to me that I interpreted as mean. I stuttered a lot back then. When I was little our father used to “beat” us (me, my sister and brother) whenever he was angry at us for some reason. This made me even more scared of everything and everyone. When I did something wrong he would hit us. My brother stood up for me a lot and took a lot of spankings up for me. That’s one of the reasons why I still see him as my big brother, my protector. Also, my father speaks French and my mother speaks Dutch. But I never really talk to my father so my French isn’t what it’s “supposed” to be. Most of the time I wouldn’t understand what he was saying and then I would just go on with whatever I was doing. He would then get very mad and drag me somewhere and then hit me. When I didn’t tidy up my room when my mom told me to she would tell my father. I would be lying in my bed and hear my father coming up the stairs. He’s quite heavy so you can hear him coming up the stairs loud and clearly. I’d wait and be terrified because I knew he was coming for me. I froze and could only hear my heart beating harder and harder. He would come into the room get me out of my bed, shout something about the mess and how I have to obey my mother and then hit me and kick me with his leg when I was lying next to my bed. He could get really angry.
Now still when I hear his loud breath (he smokes too much, really) or hear his footsteps I freeze and get scared just like I used too. Sometimes he would get angry when me and my sister were fighting about something and I was “right” and she was “wrong”. I talk Dutch to my sister you see and my father doesn’t speak Dutch and only understands a little. He would have some idea about what we we’re fighting about then get REALLY angry at me, shouting at me, ready to hurt me. Then my mother would explain the situation and then he would just go away without saying a word or say sorry. He never says sorry.
I don’t get my mother either. She has always seen what was going on. And sometimes I would hate her more than I would hate my dad, because I knew that it was she that told stuff to my dad that made him beat us. She would go to him and “cause” the whole situation. And when she saw him beat us, she would just do nothing. And she still doesn’t! When he’s angry and shouting and we all know that what his doing is absolute nonsense she would just sit there quiet and stare in front of her. I guess she’s too chicken scared of him too to say anything about it. At some point he stopped beating. I always used to think that what was happening was normal. That it was the same in every family. At some point, I can’t put a date on it, he stopped beating us. The last physical thing I remember him doing to me, was when we were at our grandparent’s house and me and my brother were just sitting in the family room waiting for our ice-cream. Suddenly he is standing behind the seat where I was sitting and grabs my by my neck and gets his angry face in front of mine so that I wasn’t able to move. I could smell his stinky breath that was a mix of alcohol and cigarettes. He was really angry and said with an angry voice that it was NOT okay that I smoked and that I have to obey my mother and do what she says and so on. That’s when I started smoking so that’s a year or 2 ago.
I always used to smoke in my room and my mother didn’t like that but I kept doing it because I knew that if my father would see me he would beat the crap out of me.
That was the last time that I completely froze and suppressed an event big time.
I’m really good at holding my tears. But whenever someone shouts at me, or hits me, even when it doesn’t hurt at all, even when it’s “just for fun” I feel like that little kid again, frozen, scared and angry.
I suppressed big time during my 17 year long life. No wonder I got all these problems with my body going on and my joints that hurt.

Ahum, back to the school part. When I was I primary school we used to sell lottery tickets in our neighbourhood so our school could have some money to by extra equipment for whatever.
When you were able to sell a lot of tickets you’d be cool and popular. So what did I do? I just bought heaps of tickets for myself and then tell I sold them. I took money from my parents wallet and give it to the teacher and say that I had been busy selling tickets all the time.
Of course my mom found out about it soon and I didn’t want to face her because I didn’t want to face myself. I didn’t want to face what had become of me.
I was glad when I left primary school, I was glad I left those things behind.
When I got to high school I imagined a new start. But instead the same people were still in my class and I was in the same school where my sister was. I wasn’t cool back then. But my sister changed that. She’d do my hair and tell me what clothes to wear. I liked it and I didn’t. I didn’t like it because I felt that she was ashamed of me and I liked it because the clothes and my appearance gave myself some confidence. Confidence that I never had.
I only stayed in that high school for 2 years. The people in my class started to annoy me and irritate me. So I went to St Lukas in Brussels, an art high school and the same school my brother went to (he was graduated when I got there). That was a big change.
All these arty girls and boys walking around in the perfect outfit, perfect hair, perfect clothes, perfect ‘picture presentation’. Art school is cool you know, but what you get is that all these people attending art school are very image based. Image and pictures is VERY important. So your picture presentation needs to be perfect as well. You’d think that people attending an art school are open minded and don’t care about that kind of stuff but I can tell you for sure, these people are pretty fucked up too.
They look at you and the way you look is WHO YOU ARE for them. I remember my first day of school. I had dreadlocks back then and got myself new friends pretty soon. They all thought that because I had dreadlocks that I was into drugs and that I might possibly share my drugs with them. Haha, was that a blow for them. Anyway, they accepted that I didn’t do drugs and I found myself some other friends. From day one I got frustrated about myself and my looks. At one point there was a new skinny pretty girl in our class and I envied her so much. We got friends and always talked about how people looked and criticize them. We both started to eat less and less. I took the train with a guy from my village and he was very uncertain about himself. His parents were rich and never home. He also started to eat less and less. I isolated myself from the friends I used to hang with and only talked to my skinny friend and my friend on the train. I was then surrounded my people that ate less and less and I joined. At that point I already knew what thoughts your mind, feelings and emotion can do with you. And I used that knowledge against me. I could recall emotions and feelings just like that and put them inside me and become that feeling/emotion. I managed my thoughts and started thinking like someone would that had anorexia or some other eating disorder. I changed my behaviour, etc. And I did all of this in full awareness. I knew exactly what I was doing.
I knew you could just switch yourself into a certain mood or state of mind whenever you want to. You could put it up together with your thoughts feelings and emotions and “play” with it. So at some point I switched the eating disorder mode off and just went back to “normal”.
I would stay like that for awhile but once I would get bored, or see no purpose in my life, if I had no “goal” I would switch back into that mode, and keep myself busy. Trying to achieve some kind of control over myself, some sort of power. Oh boy, what a mindfuck was that.
And it is interesting to see at my school. You can literally see all the girls loose weight one by one, getting skinnier and skinnier. It’s actually quite funny when I look at it now. All defining themselves according to their picture presentation.
Soit, going to St Lukas also had some good points. I got more self confident, got a bit over my fear of speaking, and wasn’t afraid anymore to be “different”. But then I was into being “different” but that’s another story and not really that important to me. It was just another way of fitting in by being different. Phew, I really just could go on and on lol.
So now I’m kind of getting at the point where I am now and 2 years ago… I know that if I go on now I’ll go total dishonest. I will write it down, but first I need to do some massive forgiveness because I want to stand clear when I write the part that has to come. And you’ve probably already fallen asleep while reading my text lol. If you read it, well respect haha.
I’m now going to do some self forgiveness on what I’ve written here which I will post when it’s done.

Thanks for reading.