Who i present isn't that far away from who i am.
You see, i've been doing shadow work since i was a teenager. I always knew i was different, off axis, unusual and in some respects, peerless.
If i'm being honest i knew even sooner then that. Kindergarten even.
In the 3rd grade i wrote "I am an alien, that has mastered human speech."
I was 7 or 8 years old, and i already knew.
I tried to learn about what being a human was. I tried to emulate those around me, as kids do, to try to find a peer group. I fell in with the bad kids and the weirdos because of the things i ACTUALLY was, poor, weird, into video games and street basketball.
That was all you needed back then, when you were small. A few frivolous commonalities were enough.
Then the social years begin. Jr. high. High school. That is when the persona really needs to begin to emerge.
It matters a little more what YOU are like, not just WHAT you like.
I learn that somehow in jr high, i am very uncool. I talk strange. I get called a faggot in the school halls and by passing cars. I get bullied, beat up, picked on and generally fail at social encounters and education as well. I am a decade beyond my peers in writing and reading, but i fail all my other classes or barely pass as i have no interest and lack the ability to feign interest in a convincing manner.
I achieve renown for a few small deeds. I walk into class one day for a test in a class i know i am failing. I sign my name, and walk out of class and walk home.
I was 11 or 12 then, and i saw no point in wasting my time in performance.
Most of my attempts at crafting a persona were failures anyway. My grandmother bought me one of those APEX jackets when they were trendy. She bought me a nintendo and at least that bought me some "friends." really just other boys who wanted to play my nintendo. I even remember some of my bullies at a birthday party my mom tried to throw for me. I ended up just watching them play games in my room.
I felt STRONG in the moments i was myself. When i walked out of that class. When i asked honestly when a teacher or therapist asked me a question. My answer always seemed to frighten, or impress, or both. I tried to code switch with kids my age. Slang and similar language. Simplifying myself in an attempt to fit in.
It never really worked. I am, and was, always, a mutant with entirely different architecture in my brain. I could learn the words and do the dance, but it always seemed "OFF" to them. They always knew.
In high school the persona was more or less at its apex i think.
I was this tall striking oddball with long hair in a dead mans long black coat, 15 years old smoking cigarettes' outside during lunch at my school. I was across the street by myself as 200 or so kids stood on the other side of the street, some smoking, most looking at me.
A short girl named amy walked over to me and asked me what i was doing. I said "smoking. this is my first day. I don't know anyone."
She dragged me across the street and introduced me to a few people.
Without that experience occurring, i think i may not have spoken to anyone for my entire high school education.
I had already learned that being myself was off putting to others, and my mother had said if you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all. I had taken that to heart.
Here i was, on my 1st day of a new school, having arrived surviving years of abuse and even being hospitalized in a mental institution having to pretend i was just a normal kid. What a complete fucking farce.
So began my persona. I joined a band. I wrote poetry and went to local readings. I worked at a record store, an all nite diner, a comic book store, and still went to school. I built a reputation for being this "cool, tough, artistic" guy by just being myself and doing what felt right. That became my persona. I think who i actual was, was closer to a severely traumatized kid managing suicidal ideation, severe depression, alienation and crushing poverty the best i could without parents to support me. Without anyone really to support me.
My shadow was a swirling black mass of crushing gravity churning under the surface. My shadow my this inescapable sorrow that i felt leaking out from ever seam and crack that light would otherwise bleed from. I was painfully lonely, mournful of my plight and completely powerless to influence any change. The friends i made in high school were really the last friends i was ever going to make with ease. They were all well heeled kids with parents and support systems all going to universities with cars of their own. It was easy to see that when high school ended, so did i. My last protected happy place went with it. The years that would follow would pulverize me into paste and i would limp through my life, often fantasizing about my own death. I didn't have a plan, i just hoped, often, that i would not wake up. That something would take me out of this place, that i could get what i had wanted as a child.
"What do you want to be when you grow up Erik?"
"Happy."
