Back before I was born there was this comic strip called Li’l Abner. In that comic there was a character from the Bronx named Joe who perpetually had a cloud over his head. It meant bad fortune. Joe held his head low and walked around in this daze angry and sad about how this curse afflicted him. In truth, all of the people mythologized as curse bearers tend to act like Joe B. I’m not much different it turns out.
I live in a universe where the majority of things that have gone wrong anywhere adjacent to me have been my fault. This may not actually be true, but this is how it has been commonly reported by my loved ones. I am blamed for quite a bit of the bad and next to none of the good and thats become so engrained in my psyche that it tends to affect my perception of the world and, more importantly, of my relationships. For starters, I tend to deeply distrust those who don’t blame me. I do so because I wonder, ‘what is your angle? what do you want from me?’ I distrust those who praise me even more, because I know they have to want something and will in all likelihood wind up betraying me in the most catastrophic way possible. So, the result is me walking around the world with a cloud over my head and recognizing that anyone who gets too close is subject to a chance of showers.
Understandably, this has a none too great affect on my personal relationships. In fact it tends to make me unaware of when I am being overly defensive and blaming. Consider that a side effect of blame fatigue. After a while I get tired of being blamed for everything, so I get angry and start blaming other people for everything going on in my world. I deny the existence of the cloud outright and claim sunny skies with no chance of showers. Or, I go the other way. Sociologists call it Labeling Theory. I get so used to being blamed for everything that once in a while I internalize it completely and decide that I am responsible for every bad thing in my life and all adjacent lives.
I suppose the truth lies somewhere in between. There are things that I need to take responsibility for. I recognize that I am far from perfect and there are a lot of things I don’t make easy. On the other hand, not everything is about what I do or create.
This blog probably doesn’t make a great deal of sense, but I hope it will to someone who needs to hear it. I hope it helps.