The thing about self betrayal is….

….it will shock you. That’s the first thing you need to know about betraying yourself- you won’t see it coming. Matter of fact, you’d never have thought that it would be you doing this to you. Betrayal sounds like such an external sin committed against you and not something you would or could ever do to self. Yet here you are, sat in a pool of your own mess wondering how this happened. Accepting with defeat that yes, in fact, you brought this on yourself. You haven’t cried, yet. You can’t even cry. You’ve tried to conjure up all the self directed rage and it’s instead morphed into self pity. Your shoulders are slumped and you are glass eyed staring into an unfocused distance, yet the drops refuse to release their weight from your eyes. It’s as if there’s some gravitational force at work keeping the tears suspended within your eye globes. It’s contained pain. Or is it rage? But why rage? What is there to be angry about and what does being angry solve? You cannot rant and scream at yourself because you think it is futile; and it is. What will come off it? No point beating a dead horse- the dead horse here being your morale that has already been bruised and broken by you. What will rage solve. Nothing.

Self betrayal is ……. shockingly painful. You’ll think this can never happen to you. You who’s assertive and vocal about your boundaries and your belief system. You who do not let people take you for a ride. Madam no-nonsense. Everybody unequivocally knows where you stand on an issue, starting from you, and they do not even bother to push. So you wonder how did you get here? It started slowly, small small. First you believed when people said you did too much. ‘Your own is too much sef, ahn ahn’. You believed the random comments. ‘Just meet people and be open minded’. Nothing wrong with being open minded- or so you thought. But what ‘open mindedness’ in this context meant was that you would be open to things that didn’t align with your morals. You would be open minded to things that you already knew you didn’t like. Because in your heart, you knew you were infact an open minded person but what they are asking of you, is to reduce the barrier that is your standard. And so you do. Believing them over your own voice is what opened the door down this path of betrayal. Next you met a boy. You knew it wouldn’t work yet they said ‘try him first and see’. So you do. You give a boy you know nothing would come out of, a chance to play. You are a commitment babe but you think to yourself- ‘I’ve been single for so long so maybe my own is really too much’. You ask yourself what’s the harm in trying something new. You believe you are just opening up your palete to a different flavor, without first considering maybe there’s a reason why your palete was initially set up the way it is. You take a bite and your mouth is so full, you can’t chew, you can’t even speak. It’s a mouthful and when you try to swallow, you find that you are choking.

You’ve drowned out your voice and now you are struggling to hear what you think about him. You continue to give an inch. You shelve your love language and invent new ones that fit what this man is capable of giving you. You are molding your frame to fit the crevice around the crook of his arm. The space doesn’t feel comfortable, yet you continue to shift and curve until you fit it. It’s snug and a tad bit uncomfortable but it looks like it fits so you stay. You convince yourself that he’s a great guy! He’s doing his best and so you stay. But the thing about shape shifting is that there’s always your one true form hanging around in the shadows and sooner or later, you stumble into it.

There’s a silver of light peeking from the slightly ajar door and you, standing in the dark, can see your true form in the shadow on the wall. You recognize it. It seems familiar. You’ll stretch out your hand to touch it and to your utter surprise, it will reciprocate and its outstretched arm will touch yours. You’ll tangle with the fingers until it merges to become one with yours. And then, then your entire being becomes one with it. This is the self realization that’s precedes the feeling of self betrayal. The moment you recall who you used to be- who you really are- and recognize how far away you’ve strayed, the grief sets in. You are unhappy now and you try to recall why you brought this upon yourself. You backtrack your steps in an attempt to abandon this new life and cleave strongly to the version of you that was, that still is.

You’ve gone through the 6 stages of grief and you are now at the 7th- acceptance and hope. Hope that this, this will be the last time you betray yourself. If you are lucky, it would be the first and last. If you are not, you’ll betray yourself again and hopefully, like this time, you’ll find your way back home to you. The you that you love and that is.