It’s Best to Humble Yourself Before Life Humbles You
I always say this because I have been humbled a number of times in my life. I can admit it very freely. I admit it so that I can remember the lessons I learned and do my best NOT to repeat them.
There are two reasons I am finally writing about this subject today.
- I am in a Facebook group and the question that was asked was something like “What have you judged people on but learned once you experienced it yourself?’
- A great KDrama called Love (ft Marriage and Divorce) on Netflix
My Experiences of Being Humbled
Some are pretty embarrassing but this blog has put all my business out there so I might as well talk about it here. It is what it is.
I thought that, when I got engaged, I was better than other women. That was me. I was that one that felt that someone had picked me so I was better. Granted, I was 25 but that still was a stupid assumption. And I paid for it. Just as you can get engaged, it can be called off.
Another one was about bad kids. Now, I never was out here yelling “Beat her/him!” but I was that one that gave a look like “Do something with your kid.” Enter my now 15 year old daughter with special needs, you guys are all familiar with her because I have blogged about my many colorful experiences with her. And there have been many. I am sure there will be more. You want to know what embarrassment looks like? Try having a child with a moderate intellectual disability and autism. Oh, the fun you will have.
I have had my eyes and arms clawed in public, she has fallen out in the floor in KMart, she has pulled my boob out at the pool because she wasn’t good at transitioning (I had to have her see a child therapist and I learned ways to help with those things). So, while we don’t have those issues anymore, she’s growing up and now she likes to talk back.
There was a time when I would be like “Ain’t no child going to disrespect me.” Yeah….no….And the problem is that my mental illness makes it so that I have to walk away because, if I don’t, I could possibly end up in jail. Let me tag some of my other blogs about my daughter here: Having a Child with an Intellectual Disability WHILE Dealing with Your Own Mental Illness, Being the Parent to a Teenager with Special Needs is HARD!, Hard Days Living with Bipolar Disorder. These are experiences that I have to contend with and, sometimes, it makes me really just think about how I thought in the past.
There are plenty of other ways that I have been humbled or ended up in the shoes of those whom I looked down my nose at.
My Parents
One thing that I am still working on is resentment towards my mother because there are some things that I felt she did without warrant to me personally. I can’t see a reason or a defense for some of it. I mean, yes, I was the third daughter, not the youngest child. And I had sisters before me that made a few mistakes but that didn’t mean I was going to be them. I was judged wrongfully. Never missed school, had good grades, did what I was supposed to do. But I was always doubted. It did something to me.
Part of the issue is that I really don’t know much about her history and upbringing. But I know that she ended up being a bit judgmental which isn’t good for anyone. And that judgment was passed onto others, including her kids. I don’t know if it has more to do with religion (she became a Jehovah’s Witness when she was pregnant with me) or what. I just know that being constantly judged took a toll on me mentally.
But I will say that I hold no resentment toward my father. Because everything he did, or said, I understand the source. One thing that children usually don’t understand is that parents were kids. Parents are people. Parents have feelings. Parents have a past.
So when I talk about my father, I always point out the fact that he is a Vietnam Vet. That is not an excuse for anything he has done in the past but it is a reason for PTSD and alcoholism (self medication). And when you are old school and aren’t encouraged to talk about your feelings as a man and all the things you’ve experienced, it takes a toll on you. Not an excuse but a fact. If you choose not to take the help that could rectify a lot of things and help you learn what you need to do to cope with the past, it will continue to wreck you. And that’s what it is doing to my father. But, at this point, I can’t help him. I also don’t want to be like him but I understand his issue and I know the source of it.
Being a Dummy Over a Man or Taking Back a Cheater
Many people have done it in the past and I can raise my hand on that as an adult. But there was a time when I didn’t think I would ever do that. I didn’t think I would ever cry over a man. I didn’t think any man would have a power over me to make me continuously allow him to make a fool of me more than once. One man did. And, to top it off, he told me we were never in a relationship. LOL
I reflect on that experience often. Why? Because it taught me things about myself such as:
1) I have a heart that can break (didn’t think I did)
2) I have the ability to love and give my all to a person
3) I can be made a fool of by the very person that I gave my heart to
I mean, I could go on with this but those are the three things I really learned. There was a time that I could have a whole roster of dudes and just do whatever with no feelings involved. But, after that “relationship”, I learned that I couldn’t anymore. Once you have felt what you thought was “love”, you want that feeling back BUT you don’t want to be a fool again. So I am happy that I had the chance to feel what I thought was true love even if it broke a piece of me in the end. But yeah, that’s it for my Ted Talk on that.
Cheating
I actually had to come back to add this. I cheated before. On a VERY good man. The very man that I was engaged to and he took me back because he loved me. But I truly didn’t know what love was and I was afraid to love because I thought something or someone was going to take him away from me. I think I touched on it in one of my previous blogs about how all my friends moved away and that gave me a bit of a fear of abandonment. I loved him but I wouldn’t allow myself to TRULY love him the way he needed to be loved. So I did some self sabotaging. I can honestly say that it as a huge mistake but I got my Karma if you look at the previous portion. I got my Karma. Life teaches you in different ways but that was a way that life taught me. That pain that I felt when I found out that someone bold faced lied to me and then called me by the name of the girl he went to be with instead of me (I didn’t do that part, that’s horrible), that’s a horrible pain. And I took him back months later when she gave him a dose of Karma. And it goes around and around, doesn’t it?
But yeah, I was a damaged individual, didn’t know what real love was, I don’t even know if I felt that I deserved love at that point. But yeah, I messed up a relationship that could have been beautiful had I been more emotionally and mentally mature. But I am glad that he is happy in his life with someone that is MUCH more suitable for him than I was. I was a selfish, young girl that literally had just started my “hoe” phase. He was a divorced dad of two who had already lived his life and was 8 years older than me. I didn’t deserve him and I can say that because it’s so true.
Examples Given in the Group
Many people talked about how they judged people with multiple children by different men, single moms, people that lived with their parents, people that wore certain things, having certain jobs, staying with an abuser, etc.
My point is that you can never really judge especially if you have never walked in their shoes. Sometimes life humbling us makes us understand. I literally try to warn people so that they don’t suffer the same fate that many other people that have lived a longer life have lived. I was one of those people. Most people are those people. Life is a journey and you learn about life until the very day you die. I choose to learn from observation rather than experience if I can. Because no one really wants to go through that heartache.
Sometimes, however, we don’t learn until it happens to us, especially if we’re teenagers. Teenagers don’t have fully developed brains so there are some things that adults might say to them out of concern but teens sometimes find other reasons (“they’re jealous”, “they don’t know what it’s like to be a teen”, “I’m smarter than them). No one wants to watch someone fail but sometimes we have to go ahead and let them go ahead because there isn’t that much talking in the world that can convince some people.
Now Lets Talk About Love (ft. Marriage and Divorce)
If I could get everyone to watch probably the FIRST episode and then one episode in the second season, I would. The FIRST episode has three women that work together. While getting ready for the radio show, an audience member decides that she’s going to confront a mistress (who works for the radio show). After this happens, the mistress is fired and the three women talk about this situation. In talking about this situation, they place the blame of the husband cheating on the WOMAN, not the mistress, the actual WIFE.
They then go around talking about how this won’t happen to them and why.
One is married to a psychiatrist (who turns out to literally likes to play with people’s heads and I don’t know HOW he had the energy to do the things he ended up doing) and she feels that her husband is absolutely perfect. He would never stray or anything. From the outside he had a whole BUNCH of us fooled. This man treated his wife like a queen, was a good father, etc but he was probably the biggest surprise of them all.
One is married to a professor and she gave up her family to be with this man. They have two kids together and this wife gives her all to her children. But she thinks that, because they have been together for so long, he’s not going anywhere.
Then there is a newlywed and she is pretty but extremely bossy and pretty selfish. I can say this because it’s true. The way she acts, the way she treats her husband’s parents, the way she straight up just disrespects him, is sad. The thing is that she thinks it’s a game. She was even proud of herself in the second season for making him “suffer” because he had pointed out that maybe she should wear a little less makeup. He apologized, bowed in front of her, brought her flowers but she was like “I’ll let him suffer a little while longer”.
Now, we’re going to go ahead and fast forward to season 2 where there is an hour long episode with one of the couples talking after something is brought to light. I will not spoil this for you if you would like to watch it. It is worth the watch and it is on Netflix if you don’t mind subtitles.
The person says what I had to learn myself and it might not seem like much but it is truly everything because he pointed out how his wife and her friends all thought they had everything under control and that nothing they did was wrong. They thought that these things would make a man stay. But the series shows how all three were humbled in different ways. Today, someone kind of got annoyed with me because they said “Not MY husband” when we were saying that sometimes single women are the ones that respect other people’s marriages enough to turn married men down. When she said that, I said that she should be verrryyyy careful with those words because life will come and mess with you.
I stand by this. I have seen it and experienced it. Now lets talk about what this man said that I have been yelling for a very long time. It is NOT all that profound but it is the truth and people really need think about it when speaking on the relationships of others or even their lives in general.
When it’s not happening to you, you can guarantee anything and make textbook choices. But it’s easier said than done when you’re caught in the mess.
Love (ft. Marriage and Divorce) Season 2, Episode 12
Sometimes we need to mind our own business or give advice when it is solicited. Otherwise, just don’t even. These women were giving advice to one another. One said that the professor’s wife (the oldest of the three) should dress better and take more pride in her appearance. Her husband had even picked out an outfit and tried to take her to a hotel but she wanted to go home and be with the kids (again, not blaming her for the downfall but I can see both sides of this). But this woman worked hard, supported her husband in pursuing his career, cooked food for him every day after working her butt off, and she thought that this was how to “keep” a man.
I am speaking of cheater men only because that is what the show is about so don’t come for my head. I already talked about how I cheated and learned my lesson. The point is that, no matter what you do, a person can cheat on you and they can give you reasons all day and most of the time, they really have nothing to do with you. In my case, my reason had NOTHING to do with my ex fiancé but everything to do with me.
In the End….
It’s okay to have confidence in where your life is now. No one is saying that but don’t go running that mouth on someone else and their life, especially when you don’t know their journey. When I was obtaining my psych degree, I learned to look outside of myself. A lot of people don’t do that. They look at their life and apply their rules to other people forgetting that everyone isn’t YOU. YOU are you. YOU live your life. YOU see things differently than those around you because no one has the same exact life. Even my siblings and I came from the same parents and all ended up in different positions in our lives.
And it’s okay to catch yourself while judging. Because no one is perfect, we might slip up sometimes but, if you actually care to do so, take a step back and consider alternatives that might have put someone in a position to do something YOU wouldn’t do. Some people say they would never be homeless or they would never steal. But sometimes things happen that we can’t really control. So… that’s the end of my rant. I hope everyone understood what I was trying to convey.
AND FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS RIGHT IN THE WORLD, WATCH LOVE (FT. MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE)! IT’S ON NETFLIX!!!!!
People thought I was being a jerk when I pointed out that all the women were going to be humbled for their judgmental response in that first episode but I knew because I had been there in my own way.
Rantings of a Mad Woman 