"Hiiiieeeeee fuckers, I’m Brynn!"
“Only assholes date me, I'm like a magnet. The Universe must fucking hate me. I don’t know what I did to ever deserve this… I only make fun of poor people sometimes.”
“I’m so fat and ugly, it’s like the Universe hand plucked me and took a giant shit on my face and then expected me to get through life this way.”
“DRINK EVERYTHING! We’re gonna have fun tonight!”
“Why did you drink everything you sack of sad, miserable shit? Now your life is ruined because you cried at the bar again - about him, AGAINNN. Everyone hates you!”
“No one is ever going to love you because you’re TOO much. How could anyone handle you, you crazy, psycho biotch?! *cries into wine glass*
Last week you got to meet Teddy, my inner white, privileged male. He’s the part of me that tells me I’m too fucking good for everything and that the world is mine and mine alone. But this week you get the pleasure of meeting Brynn. She’s the part of my ego that tells me I’m never enough. Never, ever, ever enough. She tends to take the driver seat more than Teddy, especially when I drink. She, like Teddy, is a privileged, only-child who thinks the world revolves around only her. She keeps me stuck in old habits while punishing me for doing so. She says, do this! only to later rebuttal why the fuck did you do that? She dims my power to the point of putting it out, whereas Teddy believes my power is the equivalent of 10,000, white dicks marching across the planet leaving everything in shambles in their dick wake.
Most people call Brynn a bitch. We (my friends and I) identify her as my drunk alter ego, but she lives in my head in the aftermath, too. That’s where she really gets to work plucking the shame strings. Brynn is definitely a broken, dismissed element of me. My cousin and I laughed one day about the dumb things she did the night before, but afterwards we both said we knew nothing I did was really funny. And more importantly how I felt about what I did wasn't funny, either. It's not really funny waking up feeling like shit about the life you lead, and it's not cute being a mess, although I've managed it at times. We make fun of her a lot in a joking manner because it's our chosen way of coping, but deep down we all know she's the result of a drinking problem - and I'd even argue a life lived as woman in a society whose always been told to be quiet, be polite, be pretty, and play dumb.
Although those rules were instilled in me, Brynn never played by those rules. Since I now understand she's my suppressed inner-child, the one who wanted to be seen and heard for who she really was but wasn't, it makes all too much sense as to why she gets her platform when I drink. The guards are finally down (along with my cognitive functions) and the agitation is up. She finally gets to say and do whatever she wants, even if it will look bad on her (me) the next day. She lashes out a lot and trusts no one. She tells me everyone will hurt me and that building walls is the only way to “protect” myself. "Walls let me see who really wants to get in," she says; so upon meeting me you’re already at battle with me. Cute. And Jesus H Christ, Brynn cries so much. Like, on her period, off her period, in bars, in streets, when she sees a bird. It’s a lot. And then she punishes me for it by being like, god why are you so sensitive? She punishes me for everything. She’s so mean towards me, sometimes I can’t believe there is a part of me that is this awful, especially towards her rightful owner, that betch.
Deep down I'm beginning to understand Brynn, though. She's really just angry and sad, and rightfully so. She’s been hurt a lot in her past, especially by men - including the patriarchal, power structure that told her to go the fuck away so I could begin the relentless, never-ending ascent to embody the perfect woman - who for whatever reason I envisioned as an anorexic, drug-addicted model from the 80's (gee I wonder whyyyyyy?). My entire life people (including, but not limited to society) told me to be less of who I was and to be more of something else. It hit me very young - the realization that I needed to change who I was in order to be accepted. So by fifth grade I traded in my acting classes for an eating disorder and cheerleading classes. I have to give credit where it's due to society, it sure showed my adolescence who the fuck was boss.
Brynn, my inner, young, creative, bold, brave part of me was pushed to the back and left to rot. But you can't push away what isn't meant to leave. You can't not deal with your trauma and expect it to just disappear, or I wouldn't be writing this bullshit all of the time! Over time her anger and confusion as to why she wasn’t allowed forward grew stronger, and she eventually came back to haunt me with the vengeance of 10,000, white dicks. My first sip of alcohol was at 13, that’s when she made her debut. And it was flashy, let me tell you! Operation self-destruct was in full effect and it went on for years in cycles of being better and far, far worse. That’s what happens when you suppress your inner child - she comes back like Samara from The Ring and terrorizes everyone like a curse.
It's no surprise her early encounters with men and with love (and even female friendships) were nothing shy of toxic. The first love of mine at age fifteen was a total narcissist, and he still is to this day. And if you're reading this, fuck you for trying to rob me of my power. I barely knew I had any and you made damn sure of it. But loathing you is a thing of the past, it would only continue robbing me of my energy (power) which would be silly for me to choose. You're just matter at this point. You just take up space in a world that I don't fuck with anymore. But the tone was set, and heartbreak after heartbreak began. The aftermath was the messy wreckage that happens when the world's of broken people collide. I was to blame, but so were they. We are all to blame for all of the shit. She didn't know this though. She didn't know there are so many layers to every-fucking-thing on this planet and that hurt people hurt people, which means I did plenty of hurting myself.
But she would condemn me instead of reminding me that I’m human and this is exactly how we learn, and that all of this is the reality of my circumstances (which were still better than many). Mixed in with all the amazing people you meet are the broken (or who we think of as bad or evil) ones who play as much of a role as anyone else. Often the mess of everything can inspire one to move on to greater things, it's finally starting to for me, but we like to stay on repeat in loops for a time, too. More of the same is often comforting when it's all you know, even if it's disguised as something other than the pile of shit it actually is.
It's true, sometimes you have to get burned to realize you shouldn’t play with fire. But love isn't actually fire, and I know in my case and I'm sure in many others, we get burned and instead of healing we sacrifice ourselves to the fiery pits of hell every chance we can get. The lesson will keep being repeated until it is learned. That I finally understand. I am so very thankful I got through those times, and that I somehow managed to find a tribe within it who still speaks to me and even loves me. It’s all about self-awareness it turns out. When you’re not self-aware these little babes hi-jack your brain. That's what they are, they're children who needed more or less of what they got, and they are ruthless. You lose all power for much of it. You just coast through life leaving your emotional garbage on everyone’s lawns. You’re still always there though, you just have to realize it.
I'm on the other side of that world now - the one of no awareness or accountability - but there's still grey skies here, too. And I don't mean that in a pessimistic way, just an honest way. It means the work is never done. That often hindsight and time are the only way to make sense of the senseless things you participated in. And that behind the grey skies, there are always blue skies waiting for your return to offer clarity. Who we are is behind all the lies we've been told, and when we know this that's when the work really begins. The skies continue whether blue or grey or night, and you just keep getting through them until there are no more skies left, and maybe then we'll know peace. But peace is not what I wish for now. I wish to be a thinking, feeling, breathing force that lets others know it. I wish to regurgitate the completely fucked and unwarranted ideas that were shoved down my throat for so long, like I used to do with my food. Puking is never fun though, even when you're doing it to be skinny. But it's not about being skinny anymore, this is a purge of my mind and body that a lifetime of lies burrowed into. It will take time. There is much to spew.
I'm learning your true power lies in resisting your learned urges and instead leaning into what feels uncomfortable. For me, that would've been accepting long ago it's okay to be myself, and that alcohol and drugs didn't make me me (I got some fucking killer jokes for stand up though, so no regrets). I understand that now, and it's better late than never. It doesn’t mean I don’t still give in to the things I know I shouldn’t do. Maybe one day I won't - I haven’t gotten there yet. But when I at least consider for minute what I'm about to do and question why, I have the chance to tell my egos to fuck off (or not).
As I write this it becomes all too clear to me. When our lives are ruled by our egos, whether it’s Teddy who says we’re too good or Brynn who says we’re not good enough (but likely a combo of both), we lack the clarity to understand that nothing is ever just about us. We as individuals are such a small mechanism in the entirety of everything that it’s almost too much to fathom. But fathom we must, because it’s just true. Your ego separates you instead of including you. You don’t belong locked in your head all day. Your mind is meant to be shared with other minds. And not all of them align very well or even at all, but that shouldn’t deter you from thinking there are ones who will.
It’s worth the unpleasantness of being rejected by some if it leads to finally meeting someone who sees you. And I mean sees you. Sees beyond Brynn and Teddy and can make out what lives beneath the surface, which is a breathing, living life, and one that deserves love regardless if you believe it. Our egos get in the way of what's really going on, but for as shitty as I make them out to be I know they were just trying to protect me, so I guess I kind of love them, too. At least now I do, and maybe that's the real surrender; loving (or accepting) your corrupted, shitty, downright dirty parts instead of constantly battling or submitting to them.
It felt like a BOOM; like I woke up one morning and everything had clicked. But that boom wasn't really a boom. It was quiet and creeping in with time, exposure, and experience. It takes layers of self-awareness to finally set in before you allow yourself to finally see that you were not hand plucked from the Universe to be shit on - or to be showered in all the riches of the world. You just are. You just fucking are, so just fucking be. You are here to experience this thing we call life and in order to get the most out of it is to share it with others. All of it. The good, the bad, and the ugly. And the more our egos are fighting for the surface, the less we feel safe being open. If you get out of your head for a minute, set aside all your conditioning, your grief, and your despair - you'd see you're right where you need to be and you're allowed to own that. Maybe that's a privileged thing to say, but I'm saying it.
Moral of the story is that up until now, I’ve lived my life always putting myself first which in turn left me feeling very alone. And why shouldn't it? When all you think about is you and how you're being affected, how can you feel anything else? And maybe society did that on purpose, maybe it didn't - but maybe it did. All I know is my voice, my energy, and my power got lost in all the alcohol I was drowning in to avoid all the lies I was being told about how to fit myself into this box society cast for me. But I couldn't fit in the box because I'm not a fucking piece of equipment, I'm a human and we weren't meant to be defined and confined by the means of others. What a pickle to be in! No wonder I drank, it felt like the only release from the constraints (little was it, for me personally). If hell is real, that was it. It was being isolated and held captive by my egos telling me yes and no to everything at once. There is no sense in a world that you can't make sense of.
If you ever wonder why everything in your life seems so daunting and damning it’s because you’re forgetting that all of us are experiencing these things on varying levels, and that to be kind and understanding to one another is the very fucking least we could do. We all need the support and care from each other because that's what we were designed to do. Fuck who made it, go tell the people you love (and even the ones you hate) that without their mind, your mind couldn't be your mind. Now that's a fucking compliment.