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Be Kind to People: Untangling Years of Narcissistic Violence and Abuse

Pride Rock- you mean Pride Rock Bottom? And trust me, I’ve earned my stripes.

By annika la vina Published 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago 5 min read
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Be Kind to People: Untangling Years of Narcissistic Violence and Abuse
Photo by 嘲 风 on Unsplash

It’s no secret that society is riddled with a plethora of problems, struggles, and injustices. No quick fix can solve everything, and one person can’t save everyone. I reckon that’s the appeal of Marvel movie superheroes- other than the distressing shock that comes with seeing an enormous green hulk smashing buildings all over the city (if Superman accidentally yet heroically smashes your car, who pays for the insurance??), superheroes serve as a release. Iron Man is another fantastical escape that can serve as a momentary hit of ecstasy- how amazing would it be if someone were to come into our lives and pull us out of the mud? Superheroes are everywhere, and they don’t just look like 6’3” white men in Supermen unitards. They look like presidents, religious saviors, significant others, etc. Like a god or goddess, we place figures on a pedestal to avoid facing the possibility that maybe there is no set plan, no universal decree, and no higher power present to dictate the direction of our journey. It’s sometimes scarier to admit to ourselves that we alone have complete and total freedom as to how to structure our life. The power of choice can conquer the power of freedom- with great power comes great responsibility, and is the majority of the planet mature enough to handle the blessing of responsibility?

I grew up in an Asian household- Filipino, to be exact. My parents are Ivy-League graduates with unsaid expectations that paralyzed me into procrastination and pursuit of perfection. It isn’t their fault, more so as it is anyone’s fault. Being Asian in America is harder than you think- we’re just raised to never say anything about it (sharing my experiences does not negate the severity of yours). Not only does the weight of the title, “model minority” loom over us like a cloud coupled with generational tiger-parent expectations, it’s so hard to find anywhere to truly fit in. Asians are further divided into smaller cliques, rivaling Japanese against Koreans, Chinese against Indians- each sub-group is defined with all sorts of uniquely beautiful customs and traditions, that clinging to the term “Asian” always begs for further clarification. Questions racing like, am I abandoning my homeland if I break away from generational toxic cycles? Do I even identify with white culture? Why do I feel like I need to prove myself to my white peers? I remember I read in a book a story about a Japanese-American soldier being interrogated in a World War II internment camp. They asked him a question- if you were in between an American soldier and a Japanese soldier, which one would you shoot? The man paused and looked defeated. He replied that he would take his gun and shoot upwards. When they stated that his answer wasn’t acceptable, he said that he would put his gun to his temple and shoot himself.

I’ve been haunted by the demons of perfection and pride ever since I was a little girl. I equated my parent’s success and happiness with my level of achievement. My father, an academic to a tee, graduated from Harvard. The crimson Veritas logo, the Latin slogan for truth, echoed through the halls of my Filipino household, as well as numerous Catholic crosses and Virgin Mary’s. I remember on 11/11/2011, 11:11am, I silently made a wish to God and asked him for one thing- please let me get into Harvard so I can make my family proud. At the last minute, I botched the application, frozen by the fear of rejection of my one and only wish. If I didn’t get in, that meant that magic wasn’t real. Even worse, if I was rejected, that meant that God didn’t care about my single request. It meant I didn’t matter. It meant I wasn’t good enough.

Trying to weave happiness into everyone else’s lives drained the happiness I needed to give myself. Like Jesus on the cross, creating an identity out of pure intentions and good-heartedness inadvertently meant subjugating myself to play the role of the villain. I would always give in, and surrender to the other “player”, in order to “keep the peace" and calm the chaos that surrounded the environment that I grew up in. In order to secure a sense of safety for myself, I had to be the loser. I had to take fault in every argument, own up to “mistakes” that weren’t even mine in the first place, and play the role of the “happy girl” at all times. And when I started letting people “win”, I started seeing myself as the destroyer, the enemy, the one who did everything wrong. Up until recently, I had been dimming my light and burying my power to keep the people around me comfortable. It got me absolutely nowhere- to me, my narcissistic abusers were “father figures” who only wanted “what was best for me” and I was the crazy, destructive, horrific monster that no one could handle. That was my first wake-up call- if I only wanted to uplift everyone around me, why did they take so much pleasure in keeping me down?

It's hard to grow up in a world where “maturity” is riddled with toxicity. I have to figure everything out myself, and become horrendously bullied and chastised for simply trying to be better. It wasn’t until I looked around at my friends and family that I realized that, in a way, I had fulfilled my wish of going to Harvard. The loud and clear message of Veritas, or truth, rang relentlessly around me.

You can’t save people who don’t want to be saved, and you can’t believe in people who don’t want to grow. And sometimes, those people will be the people you love the most.

And because I consider myself non-religious, finding the strength to persevere through the pain (like I have my entire life), I humbly, and unashamedly pat myself on the back for facing the biggest truth of all- the truth that took me two college flunk-outs, month-long sabbaticals around the world, a sexual assault, narcissistic abuse, and group abandonment, rejection, and betrayal to figure out-

Believe in yourself.

humanity
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About the Creator

annika la vina

24 year-old writer, artist, and entrepreneur. I survived because the fire inside me burned brighter than the fire around me.

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