Getting Rid of the Garbage (Pandemic Clean-Up: Post 4)

I expect it has been many years since you have given me a thought but I want you to know that I have not forgotten you.

I never said a word about what you were doing back then: your secret is still safe. But I have read a great deal about narcissism and sociopaths and borderline personality disorder in the years since my body mercifully gave me an ‘out’ and I was given the gift – although I did not see it that way at the time – of getting far, far away from you.

I have kept every kind note; every e-mail of thanks, no matter how insignificant, that I received during those challenging years. I am glad to say that there were many, many colleagues whose company I enjoyed immensely. Even though those notes remind me of a challenging time in my life, I do not have the heart to part with all those positive little messages: they tell me that I was doing a good job; that I was making a difference no matter how unworthy, how useless, how hopeless, how small you made me feel.

I often wonder who your scapegoat is now. I wonder who you are shunning, talking about, pretending not to ‘see’ when you pass them in the hall, excluding from important meetings by ‘forgetting’ to send an invitation, spying on, spreading rumours about. Maybe even going through their files, like you did mine. I wonder if you play the mind games with them that you did with me. I wonder if they feel like they’re going a little crazy because your games are so subtle and so unprovable that your victims can never be entirely sure they’re even real at all. I wonder if they, too, ask themselves repeatedly what on earth they did for you to act the way you are acting.

I know you need that type of relationship to feel good about yourself. But oh, I hope your current victims are stronger than I was…

You know who you are.

Every single one of you.

I have tried, over the years, to find forgiveness for you. The problem is, it’s hard to forgive people who will forever reside as monsters in your heart.

Because that’s what you are. I see you clearly now, from this safe distance.

Don’t bother to come looking for me.

I never, ever want to lay eyes on you again.

Source of photo

Patti Moore Wilson/© wednesdayschildca.wordpress.com