I Apologize for My Existence
This time, I mean it slightly differently - bear with me.
I published an article last night in which I begged people for compliments. I asked shamelessly for the reasons people like me. I was hurting — struggling to feel valuable — and I hoped I could feel better by asking people for kind comments. It made no difference to me whether the stories were real or imagined.
Frankly, I was embarrassed when I published the article. I typically post links to a new article on Mastodon, my website, and the Discord server I manage.
But not this article. Instead, I fell asleep worrying about how frivolous my article felt. I woke up intending to delete the article or print a retraction.
The primary aspect of social media I dislike is its tendency to devolve into a popularity contest. I find it distasteful to engage in false self-promotion. If people like me, I figure they will tell me without my prompting them.
In the back of my mind, however, there is always another nagging question, one that has plagued me since grammar school:
What if I lose the popularity contest?
Taking up space
I woke up to an email notifying me there were 10 fans of my article. Some of you may be wondering “Did she forget a zero at the end of that number?” No, I didn’t forget — my articles don’t get that kind of fan club.
Instead, my typical article gets 10 fans in around 24 hours. This one got them in less than 10 hours, many of those overnight. That surprised me.
To be clear, I haven’t looked at the comments yet. I was too embarrassed to read them earlier today, and one WhatsApp message I received explained why.
The message I received said I “always apologize for taking up space on [her] WhatsApp.” At first, I bristled a little — as I do at most criticism. But I realized that statement captured exactly how I was feeling about my article: about writing it, publishing it, not wanting to promote it, intending to delete it.
I had a very different article planned to write today. I intended to write a retraction of sorts — an apology, to be precise. I would have written I apologize for needing to be loved. I apologize for wanting to be acknowledged. I apologize for hoping I matter.
I apologize for taking up space.
Catharsis
One of the comments to my article that I did read — the first comment, in fact — came from Robin Wilding 💎(who had encouraged me to write the article in the first place). She remarked how cathartic it is to be able to write out our fears and our needs.
I wasn’t sure how to process that comment — I felt terrible having published what I did. To cover my pain, I made a cheap joke back about not being sure if I experienced catharsis or just gouging out my eyes — a wacky reference to the story of Oedipus Rex.
For those not familiar, catharsis is a literary device developed by Greek writers, used prominently by Sophocles in his Theban plays, which feature Oedipus and his children.
Catharsis occurs when the heroine (typically “hero” in Greek literature, but as this is my article, I choose to ignore that) realizes the error she made with her actions. She experiences remorse and regret. She repents for her actions, and attempts to atone for them.
Catharsis is very strongly linked to hubris. As I pondered how much I apologize and how much more I wanted to apologize, I believe the insight that crashed upon me with the force of the Riddle of the Sphinx can only be named cathartic.
Hubris
Hubris is another Greek literary device, in which a character is given a fate by the gods, but believes she can escape that fate because she knows better than the gods. She acts according to her desires, her plans, and ignores the advice the gods give.
In Oedipus’s story, he attempts to dodge the fate of killing his father and marrying his mother. But the gods ensure Oedipus does exactly that.
When he discovers his actions have no effect, Oedipus feels remorse. He experiences a catharsis and gouges out his eyes for…I guess some tragic reason. I think I probably would have just said “Hey, I’m sorry,” but that doesn’t make for very exciting literature.
In modern usage, when we think of hubris, we think of British Imperialism, the United States War on Terrorism, or Donald Trump’s…well, kind of his whole life.
We don’t associate hubris with a meek kitten of a transgender woman just trying to figure out life today.
But the gods, as Bernard Cornwell wrote, are capricious. And if not capricious, they certainly aren’t going to tell you the way the Universe works.
In my original article, I wrote that I fail to allow the Universe to flow through me. Each of us has one job to do — not a difficult one — and that is to allow the Universe to flow through us into everything we do.
But I choose to do everything alone. I choose to forsake the Universe, because I seem to know better.
Reconciliation and plans
As I realized my hubris, I experienced a catharsis — whether Robin expected me to come to this conclusion is unclear (although if you did, Robin, by all means, go into psychotherapy!).
Now, having written this article, I understand what I’m doing wrong much better now.
This is — as I mentioned in the previous article — the programming I received as a child. I do apologize for taking up space. I needed to do that to survive my father’s abuse.
So what’s with the title? Am I really apologizing again?
Yes.
To all of you, I apologize for how I existed. I apologize for not hearing you when you told me you cared. I apologize for dismissing you when you told me I did well. I apologize for never learning to love myself and inflicting my temper tantrums and self-destruction upon you as the Universe kept trying to correct me.
I defied the Universe, and I will atone for my actions. From what I hear, EMDR is useful for uncovering deep-seeded fear and trauma. I will give it a go — for all of us.
I want to thank all of you who responded to my article, emailed me, wrote other Medium articles, sent me texts or WhatsApp messages. I hear you. I’ll make the effort to fix this.
If nothing else, I don’t want to be in the same club as Donald Trump.