On Being Terrible

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Sometimes I feel the need to demonstrate to people what a terrible person I am. More often than not, their response is to downplay my awfulness. "You're not that bad!" "You're really a kind person, I can tell."

First off, if you just met me you can't tell you're just guessing, and you're guessing is disproportionately informed by the fact that I am female and not ugly, which is bullshit because women are completely capable of being evil and so are pretty people but you don't even know what the halo effect is or why it's the only thing relevant to the garbage streaming out of your mouth. "You don't look like a terrorist" shut the fuck up you ignorant twit.

But sometimes it comes from a person who knows me at least well enough that I can't shrug off their attempts at comforting me with wikipedia references, and it bugs me more. Clearly you don't know me all that well, if you're still arguing that I'm a nice person. But [REDACTED], you care about people and stuff! Like that's some kind of measure of goodness, like it negates the bad things that live in my head that are still me whether you call them "demons" or "depression" or "brain weasels." Still me. Still my responsibility. I am not so broken that I cannot be bad.

And I wonder why it bothers me so much that people don't believe that I'm terrible, and why they feel the need to assure me that I'm not. And I think it comes down to religion. Because I know I'm terrible. I can catalog for you every time I have been needlessly cruel to someone, every time I was manipulative, every time I didn't give a shit, or enough of a shit, about things that mattered. All the things I failed to do. It's there and it's real and don't you dare try to pretend that none of that mattered because I did that. It's mine. It belongs to me. It may not be pretty or nice or even not-terrible, but it's all that I have. It's my shitty life and you can't take it away from me for editing and rewrites.

It's not just that they don't understand me. I am not sixteen and this is not shitty goth poetry night. Whether or not anyone can truly communicate their "deep inner life" is inconsequential to the problem at hand. When people try to whitewash me, especially people who are not strangers, I am terrified that they are taking away something precious from me. That somehow, if they remove my awareness of the wrongs I've done, I will be damned. They point out all the good that I've done, or make blanket statements about the inherent worth of life and humanity and it's all the wrong thing.

They tell me I will be okay, that I am okay. That there is such a thing as "good enough." Like there's some magical amount of not terrible that will save me. Like if I do enough good in the world it will make up for the bad. Like someone can do that calculus and my heart will be lighter than the feather.

I left catholicism when I was young, but I still have that running tab of all the bad things I've done and am continuing to do. I had to accept myself as a terrible person, not throw myself before a god I abandoned, but to take stock myself and accept who I was. If I pretended that I was "good enough" then I could lie to myself about being saved anyway. That I could still get a pass to the magical sky castle without all the churchiness. But that wouldn't really be leaving, now would it? I still would have one foot in the door, still convinced I would receive all the benefits from a lifetime of faith without doing the hard part. They could have sucked me back in.

I'm gone. I'm not saved. I'm not going to party with you after we all rot. Whatever happens, I am on a different trajectory now. I don't need your god or any god to come down and forgive me for my sins anymore. They are my sins. They are my weight. Jesus can carry everybody else, I'm gonna do me. And leaving broke more hearts and added more weight and I literally do not give a fuck because its what I needed to save myself. I am here, I am breathing. That's enough.

I'm not coming back. I'm okay with being terrible.

[Doktor Howl]

MARRY ME

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I want an emote for this that we don't have. The emote for "knowing you are terrible makes you potentially good on a level that those who know that they are good can never attain".

[Junkenstein]

 

Fucking perfect.

Terrible people are the best people.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Yay!

I found half of this in a random txt file and finally wrapped it up last night. I was worried the gap would make things choppy or muddled, but it looks like it found the nerve

[Eater of Clowns]

Love this.

[Doktor Howl]

I want an emote for this that we don't have. The emote for "knowing you are terrible makes you potentially good on a level that those who know that they are good can never attain".

I am SO stealing that to justify the requirements of my new job description.

Might even fool Jesus.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I want an emote for this that we don't have. The emote for "knowing you are terrible makes you potentially good on a level that those who know that they are good can never attain".

I am SO stealing that to justify the requirements of my new job description.

Might even fool Jesus.

[notloki]

This is excellent.

i like that you own your terribleness to such a degree.

this is why I like PD so much.

not the book but the website.

posts like this shine truth into places that are normally kept illusory.




PD is like ripping off bandage, wound finally breathe fresh air but OW SHIT IT HURTS

Your friend,
notloki

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

"knowing you are terrible makes you potentially good on a level that those who know that they are good can never attain".

Can this be stolen?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

"knowing you are terrible makes you potentially good on a level that those who know that they are good can never attain".

Can this be stolen?

Absolutely!

[Reginald Ret]

Very well said!
It reminds me of something:
dan le sac and scroobius pip - sick tonight

But in the real world things just ain't that easy

You can't take back your mistakes so freely

You gotta take them in think about them deeply

Not ignore them and just move on discreetly



They say Jesus died for somebody's sins but

God knows he didn't die for mine

Coz I'll stand accountable for my own damn sins each and every time.



And if my sins are too great to be accepted in the circles which I strive

Then I'll go right ahead and live a lone lush life in some small dive

[trix]

FUCK YES

I like this so much!  Fucking seriously sick of people forgiving me for shit I did they barely even know about.  "Oh I'm sure it's not that bad, I know you're a good person."  FUCK YOU FUCKASS YOU WEREN'T THERE.  I've done some fucked up shit and goddamn DESERVE to feel like shit about it sometimes.  I've earned that shit.

THANK YOU for putting it better than I ever could have.  Massive respect for this.

- trix

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

sometimes it takes being not such a good person to be a good person.

Maybe just in funding. Maybe in existence.

[The Johnny]

sometimes it takes being not such a good person to be a good person.

Maybe just in funding. Maybe in existence.

It's another problem arising from external labels. If you stick by what you are called, you are following a pattern that is perceived by them but might not be true to yourself. And others notion of goodness might not be your own personal notion of goodness, so doing your personal good might alienate you from their notion of good.