Last week I was driving out the gate of my high rise apartment garage. An older lady was in front of me. She was blocked in by a workers van and he would not give her enough room to get out. I watched her get frustrated as the guy would not move up and make space obviously thinking there was enough room for her. She disagreed and bravely got out of her car and walked up to the van and screamed at the driver to make way. He angrily spun forward and screamed "bitch" at her as she drove away. I watched it all unfold from a few feet away. I did not act. I am relentlessly beating myself up for not walking out of my car and defending the woman by telling the driver he had a big mouth to swear at her and who did he think he was etc etc.. But I didn't get involved. I just watched.
So, it is now several days after the incident. All I did was report the event to the building management lady to tell her what I witnessed. Now, my appetite is gone, I have been feeling miserable and all I have done is sleep and work since Friday. I am obsessed with my inaction. I hate myself again. It might as well have all happened in the school yard.
I was going to follow up with the lady in the building I reported the incident to, I was going to go downstairs and see if this guy or his business was working on fixing the garage door today, I was going to do something to relieve the anxiety in my stomach. But this time I have not acted out. I know action would be coming from the wrong place. It would have been fine if I did something, anything to aid the lady when it happened but it's over with no harm. Now. if I can let it be without destroying my life any further. So, you see. It's all about me not victims. I understand all that.
It has been my history to torture myself because of my OCD about bullying to correct an injustice.If I felt was done to me or another does not matter. Facing fear does. That's all this is about. Many times I have acted out during an event or afterward many times unnecessarily and with bad consequences.. It has never been for justice. It is just to relieve my own anxiety.
I have gotten into fistfights, faced all kinds of physical fear, gone after people who I wanted to confront for so many years now that I have literally been controlled by this seeking justice aspect of my OCD affliction. I don't ever really care about avenging either acts against myself or another because they are always non-serious like the garage incident. It's just that when I sit by without acting as I just did I feel like the coward I have always felt I was ever since I was bullied as a little boy. Acting out always seems like the right thing to do but it is the wrong thing to do. The solution to this problem lies within. I am trying today to let it.
I have suffered so much both physical and mental torture from trying to face the fear of facing people like that van driver that I have ruined a considerable pert of my life being a prisoner of this OCD condition. The cure only comes when I do face a fear as it happens or after it happens and it all works so my brain can get right by getting an apology or punching someone or doing something where in the end I my head gets back in balance Then I stop caring which is the end of any obsession.
My appetite returns, my personality comes back and life goes back to normal until the next event that I get involved in either intentionally or unintentionally where my courage is put to the test and I again think I failed. I was not afraid to go to the aid of that lady. I have done much more dangerous and risky things many times before. I just didn't that time.
All the instances where I have faced physical danger do not matter now. It feels like I am the same little boy who my brother told to go outside and fight the bullies and I could not because I was afraid. I learned to face danger anyway even though I am still always afraid when I do. But I have walked the plank many times because I don't want to feel like this. Also, occasionally, there is some moral good attached..
But I just won't let myself off the hook when I feel I failed. So, maybe it's SSRI's again or maybe writing will do it.
I am 64 and still bullied. I could recount these kind of stories continually but who cares?.
I am my own victim.
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