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Monday, January 6, 2014

Confessions of a Miserable Beauty Blogger and Closet Bully

Welcome to my blog. This is the place where I am free to express myself, free to talk about what I enjoy, free to post pictures of my favorite things, free to talk about the frustrations of living with a chronic illness and free to confess my sins. I've have a beautiful day relaxing, blogging, chatting with friends, helping a few friends and realizing a few things about who I am. It's possible that the Vicodin I have taken for pain might have loosened my tongue (or fingers since I'm actually typing this) or it could be that this is my way of coming back to center as I feel I might have wandered far from my usually zen path.

Recently, I found myself in a situation where I was speaking ill of others on a regular basis. Initially, it began as an expression of frustration for humanity's tendency to utilize poor judgement. I know they possess the wisdom to make better choices or maybe I expected them to do what I believed they should have done. Either way, it eventually changed from expressing my frustrations about their poor behavior to something more personal, something more vicious. I had become an adult closet bully. I say 'closet bully' as my behavior was never inflicted upon the target. Everything I said was expressed to someone who was either not connected to the target or to someone whom I trusted. So if my snarky comments were not hitting their intended target what was the purpose of permitting the ferociousness of my sharp tongue to be unleashed with reckless abandon? What is the purpose of allowing my tongue to throw dangers if they would never verbally slice open the flesh of a target? Sport. Pure unadulterated sport. 


So did hurling insults at everyone from inside a bubble help me possess more credibility, a higher social status, a more intimidating persona, or more friends? Did this behavior make me productive, more popular or make me feel better about myself? So why did I feel that taking cheap shots at unsuspecting and unknowing victims would be an enjoyable past time? For that I truly have no answer. Why would I, an overweight, mid-40, average looking, chronically sick girl who has a veritable cornucopia of flaws, think that acting like a middle school bully would bring me more peace, happiness, and tranquility? Maybe it was my feeble attempt to express my frustrations for a life wrought with pain, symptoms, medical tests, neurology visits, pills, and general lack of ability to control my own body. Maybe I was just allowing myself a moment or two to cross over to the dark side in order to explore the whole 'grass is greener' theory. Maybe I just wanted to feel better about my own situation by pretending that others have more problems than I do. I really haven't figured out why. 


What I did discover was that when you spend an untold amount of time dwelling on negativity, it breeds malcontent. I found that I had more pain, more symptoms, slept poorer, felt more exhausted, and was generally felt awful. When I looked into the mirror I saw the makings of a bitter old woman. Although I am ashamed to publicly admit my poor judgement and immature behavior, I will choose to use this experience to remind me that I am much more comfortable being friendly, happy, helpful, cheerful and positive. The past few days, I've been reflecting upon my behavior and what drove me to act like a grown up bully. I've reconnected with friends, lent a hand to a couple of friends in need, become a bit closer to an acquaintance or two, helped a couple of women feel more confident about beauty products, focused on things I truly enjoy and found myself smiling for no reason once again. Even though, I am putting this behavior behind me, I would like to extend my apologies to all of the women I belittled. Although saying those things behind your back didn't directly have an effect on you, it did perpetuate the cruelty with which people can treat each other. We are all beautiful and we are all flawed. I use beauty products to conceal my flaws and highlight my best features. I use my blog to help other women highlight their beautiful features. I should use my tongue to spread the beauty of supporting each other. I will use my heart to keep me focused on the compassion.  I hope you can use your heart to forgive my failings and help me show support to all the amazing people we have the privilege of knowing. I would understand if you never read my blog again. However, this is an honest blog where I am not ashamed to talk about my failings if only to figure out how to forgive myself and to move on in a positive direction. 

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