Field Note: I NEVER Needed to Be Humbled

For a long time, I carried a heavy hair coat that was NEVER mine to begin with.

It was made of blame, guilt, hypervigilance, over-explaining, over-apologizing, and trying to become so good, so helpful, so easy, so useful that no one could justify hurting me. It was also guilt from REACTING to mistreatment after trying to make repairs or amends from accidents and misunderstandings. But no grace was given.

I thought if I could just be better, quieter, prettier, calmer, thinner, more productive, less emotional, more understanding, more forgiving, more accommodating, then perhaps I would finally be safe. If I didn’t care for my appearance I was sloppy, lazy, trashy. If I cared for my appearance, I was vain, insecure, anorexic, self-centered. That is a double bind.

Safety NEVER comes from abandoning yourself to other’s opinions.

There is a difference between accountability and punishment. There is a difference between self reflection and self abandonment.

There is a difference between owning my mistakes and carrying the weight of everyone else's pain, anger, dysfunction, neglect, projections, moods, failures, and cruelty.

It wasn’t till I experienced intentional MANIPULATION from AUTHORITY that the light was finally shined on what truly was happening.

I do believe in accountability. I absolutely do. I believe in apologizing when we hurt people. Saying I’m sorry and making people comfortable is natural and free. I have always even as a child came from a place of love. I believe in growth, self-awareness, repair, honesty, and trying to do better.

But I no longer believe that I deserved the inhumane ways I have been treated.

I did not deserve to be shamed.

I definitely did not deserve to be gossiped about. And neither did my children. Especially seeing how we don’t. We don’t talk about other people. We don’t recruit others to our side to isolate others. We have asked for help. We have asked for witness. We have asked for protections and interventions. But what we got was something we didn’t expect in return.

I did not deserve to be blamed for everyone else's unhappiness and insecurities.

I did not deserve to be held to impossible shifting standards while others escaped accountability entirely, given mantels of supposed community goodness.

I did not deserve to be left without protection, kindness, tenderness, guidance, or care.

There is another trick I am beginning to understand more clearly now.

People who hurt others often do not want to face themselves. They do not approach hurt with curiosity. They approach it with denial and accusations.

Instead of taking accountability, they deny, deflect, reverse blame, minimize, justify, or act as though the person they harmed is the real problem. Sometimes they make the victim seem “too sensitive,” “too emotional,” “too difficult,” “too dramatic,” “too needy,” or “too much.”

There is even a pattern for this: deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender.

DARVO.

The person causing the harm denies what they did, attacks the other person for reacting to it, and then positions themselves as the victim instead.

How much of my life have I asked for forgiveness from my abusers? How much time have I spent questioning myself? How many times have I isolated myself out of confusion, for protection, or as punishment? A lifetime.

It is a powerful and confusing form of manipulation because it can make someone who has already been hurt start to question themselves.

Maybe I am too much.

Maybe I am selfish.

Maybe I am ungrateful.

Maybe I deserved this.

Maybe I just need to be humbled.

But that is not true.

Victimizers often like to tell themselves that the people they hurt “needed humbling” because it justifies their cruelty. It allows them to feel righteous, superior, or entitled in their mistreatment. It protects them from having to sit with the truth that they were harsh, neglectful, controlling, exploitative, or unkind. I’ve experienced this from people with the mantel of goodness and authority. This is why i do not believe in hierarchy or blind obedience. I will never be someone’s soldier.

I am my child’s defender and shield. But I will not humble them at the request or on behalf of authority.

I never needed to be humbled.

I needed to be protected.

I needed to be encouraged.

I needed to be loved enough to grow, not shamed enough to shrink.

I needed someone to say, “You are trying so hard. You do not deserve this. Let me help you carry some of it.”

The inhumane ways I have been treated bowed me. They taught me to make myself smaller. Quieter. Less needy. Less visible. Less alive.

But I am learning something now.

I can stand up. My spine is now straight, not bowed.

I can take off the heavy coat.

I can stop carrying what was never mine.

I can give myself the grace, love, protection, kindness, and mentoring I always deserved.

And I think that may be one of the deepest forms of healing there is. And I wish it for everyone. Maybe then we can stop hurting one another unnecessarily.

Maybe then we can stop asking wounded people to carry more than they should.

Maybe then we can stop mistaking shame for growth, fear for respect, and punishment for love.

Maybe then we can become gentler with one another.

Maybe then we can finally put down what was never ours to carry.