I don’t even know where to start.
I’d like to believe I am a very principled person. Honor, integrity, kindness, are all very important qualities I must exude. I feel a certain type of shame whenever I abandon these values, because I lose a part of myself that I want to be confident in. I aim to always walk with valor, rather than quickly parting ways with it the second it appears more convincing to walk away.
However, I am plagued with a curse, a curse so strong that once it takes over, I abandon all sense of self and release the caged vermin inside of me that aches for freedom.
I possess a fury within me that is kept at bay, an overtly negative trait, a specific type of anger that can only be triggered in very select circumstances. I know, with certainty, that I am a naturally kind and empathetic person. I value my large capacity for compassion as I see it as one of my most noble strengths, making me firmer in my stances, more passionate in my work, and a proper asset to my community.
Though, I have a fire inside me that can quickly erupt the second it is provoked. It is only evoked in circumstances of intense betrayal, always at the hands of former lovers who have scorned me.
The first time I was betrayed by a love interest was a few years ago, and it induced a visceral reaction out of me, one that I glare at in horror when my emotions are rationale and intact. However, when I feel a sense of betrayal inflicted on me by someone who once held my trust, my kindness soon finds the nearest exit, setting the foundation for the flames within me to expand, soon consuming me.
I have been gifted with this skillset, this unique ability to convey myself through language and to carefully craft the most eloquent sentences. I can relay myself to anybody with ease, I can narrate situations with precision to detail, I can ensure my tone is always one of enchantment. Language is never something that eludes me; I am always certain of my verbiage, positive in my ability to articulate myself to this complex world.
With that gift comes a responsibility to use it with care. And I often do. I am cognizant of the evolution of language, noting what words are outdated, changing terminologies, all in order to be more effective in my work as an advocate for positive social change. I am exact when I speak, never allowing room for misunderstanding. But most notably, I am always sure to listen with grace when others are considerate enough to speak with me. I carefully take in the words of the people around me, empathizing with what it is they tell me, and responding to them with consternation.
Unfortunately, my attention to detail and care for language quickly flees the second that rare feeing of betrayal is triggered. Soon enough, all principle abandons me, and I take this gift, this skill that was so lovingly gifted to me by generations of thinkers and writers before me, and transform it into my strongest weapon. My gentle tongue, one that speaks only in lyrics and poetry, quickly evolves into the tongue of a snake. Words then exist solely to perform the task of inflicting an emotional wound on my target, a wound vast enough to scathe them for months to follow, years if I am lucky, if I am successful.
I find the most damaging words, the easiest targets, and I equip myself with all the tools needed to get the job done. I will make the person who hurt me feel the same emotional pain they have placed onto me. An eye for an eye. I think to myself, “It is only fair. It is only right.”
My first victim was, as I mentioned, a former love interest of mine, who had surpassed the tolerance of how many times I will allow someone to be so negligent with my heart. I looked into his soul and found what mattered most to him, quickly squashing it with the most callous words I could find, words I knew would leave an imprint on his soul. I knew how much his values meant to him, therefore I said to him, “You pretend you value honesty so much. You pretend to be this passionate, Leftist guy, someone who cares about social justice, but you are a fraud. If you cannot be honest with the people around you, you cannot lie to an audience and pretend you are a virtuous man. You are dishonest to your core.”
Not verbatim, but this was the general sentiment. Did I fundamentally believe that? No. Was I hurt, and did I aspire drag him down to the depths of Hell with me? Yes.
When my love interests hurt me, I accept this rage into my life. This rage finds a home within my heart, within my stomach, within every crevice of my being. The airy version of myself, the one committed to kindness, to a better world, lives in the shadows. I ignore her pleads and give in to the Devil who tells me that the only way through these turbulent emotions is through a commitment to vengeance. My days will become filled with hate. I am angry at everything, at everyone. But there will be brief moments my goodness rumbles within me, and I question the longevity of living a life consumed by malice.
Is this really who I want to be? I am so kind. I am so friendly. I am so loving. I believe in a better world. Why am I allowing this anger to take me whole? All at the hands of men I have only known for a short period of time? Am I not torturing myself in this quest for futile revenge? Where did my warmth go?
I wrestle with these thoughts, but the anger is too strong, much more overbearing than that fleeting kindness. I push it aside, returning to the redness, because red is easier. Anger is a surface level emotion that shields us from any real harm. When we are angry, our worldview is bleak, and nothing is relevant other than filling this hole in our body that can only be fed by an absence of love and an acceptance of evil.
I had another love interest, a nominal one at that; hardly a love interest at all. The more fitting terminology would have been, “waste of time.” The circumstances in which we met were unique, and he portrayed himself to be a man of high moral character, and it showed in his actions as he routinely organized protests for social causes that mattered to him. I saw his unwavering commitment to a better world and accepted that to be wholly him. When he betrayed me, I found myself in a state of shock, questioning my judgement, weary of all the men around me once again. I did not respond with intense aggression this time, the emotions here were more muted, but I was still calculated in my approach, guilting him, targeting his belief in his ethics, juxtaposed with the reality that his ethics exist in name only. How can you deliberately hide your girlfriend from me, hide me from your girlfriend, then get on a stage and make grandiose statements about liberation from decades of oppression? How can your morals exist in only one category of your life, and cease to matter when it comes to interpersonal relationships?
This is a concept I regularly struggle to fully wrap my mind around. How is it that some people can swear by their moral code, yet abandon it so readily once temptation grows too big to ignore? It is when I am pondering this question that I am forced to remind myself that this moral dilemma is not foreign to me, it unfortunately feels all too familiar. I am quick to shun my moral code the second I feel insatiable, and my appetite for anger grows to unreasonable proportions until it swallows me whole. Soon, I find myself gnawing for more and more, but it is never enough, because anger has no end. Anger will consume you until all that is left of you is a shell of a human, once filled with humanity, now reduced to something unrecognizable. No longer human, now just a fire burning so intensely that nothing, no plant, bug, bird, animal, nothing, can survive in its proximity. All human relationships die within miles of this fire, slowly causing the collapse of a dignified human world.
It is, essentially, the same. Where they abandon ethics for lust, I abandon ethics for revenge. It is a shameful testament to the complexity of the human spirit, and the fruitlessness of a moral code we so willfully abandon once the alternative becomes that much more alluring. We are no better than Eve and her apple. Who are we to judge, when we commit the same immoral acts in different shades?
Another love interest of mine, more recently, betrayed me too. His was more severe because we were dating for some time, and I routinely felt like he was being dishonest with me, but every time I mentioned it, he would be quick to turn the cards on me, accusing me of being unfaithful and deceptive. Therefore, when I learned the truth of his duplicity, I was momentarily filled with relief that I could finally abandon this dead relationship, sad that I lost my partnership, and soon enough, enraged. Not enraged that my partner cheated per say, not enraged that I lost my companion, enraged at all the times he made me feel small when he knew I was right the whole time. That he was unfaithful and that I was not crazy.
Naturally, the version of myself that I love and adore, the one that is kind, the one that would never hurt a bug, the one that cries for dead birds, the one who walks with her head high, the one who swears to a life of empathy for her neighbors, is suddenly a shadow, regularly running after me, while I escape and turn to the dark, knowing she will soon blend in with it, and I will be free to be as cold blooded as I need to be to my target. I will ensure he feels the same emotional turmoil inflicted on me. It is the only rationale way to go about it. In the court of law, if you murder someone, you must receive an equal punishment to the crime you inflict. Therefore, I had a responsibility to enact the law, assuming the rule of the judge, jury, and executioner, and punish my ex-boyfriend for being void of morals.
I was cruel to him, degrading him, mocking him once the truth was revealed to me. I sent him voice memos telling him what an asshole he was, how he lives a sad life, and how he should be ashamed of himself for the life he lives. I felt no remorse; why would I? What empathy does a monster like this truly deserve from me? I was simply leveling the playing field, adopting an eye for an eye strategy, and we’d walk away even. I felt nothing. I was simply doing my job.
Now that some time has passed, I cannot say that I necessarily feel bad that I hurt him with words. However, I am filled with shame that I stooped to such a low tier in order to get back at him. What issue did that solve? If anything, did that not attest that we are of the same moral caliber? That we both can abandon principle the second it seems more convenient? The second the path of retaliation is more appealing than the path of righteousness?
Some time had passed and I’d found myself mostly healed, when my friend told me she saw my ex-boyfriend on Bumble. He knew her because he met her at one of my parties when we were together. She took a photo of us. I knew he knew her. I told her to swipe right and see what he’d say. They talked, she mentioned me, he was indifferent. I thought what an asshole for trying to get with my friends. Eventually, she stopped replying, and a few days later he asked her for her Instagram.
It was a beautiful, sunny day, but the warmth of that day only helped fuel the fire atop my skin. I found myself filled with a impenetrable hatred, shocked someone could be so careless, disgusted anybody would try to get with my friends and show such a lack of regard for me. I wish, so badly, that I could properly relay the feeling in my gut when this all happened. The simplest terminology to articulate it is that it felt like there was a string attached to my gut, and the string was pulling me towards the bad decisions. I had a limited ability to fight against whatever spirit was pulling that string forward to the path of doom. I knew what I would do. I was going to see my friend in 2 hours, and I was going to take her phone, and disparage my ex boyfriend in the Bumble chat, sending a photo of myself flipping him off. There was no other option—I had to do it. I had to be cruel. I had to make him feel the depths of despair he has imposed on me. It is only fair. Judge, jury, executioner.
Do I really want to be stuck in this cycle forever? If I talk to him, it will only boost that dopamine I get from the regular up’s and downs of what was our relationship. If I do that, I worry I will be taking a step backwards, and I will be trapped in this never ending loop. I believe nothing in my life will go right, always wrong, if I do this.
I do not care. He deserves the scorn, even if it comes at the expense of my livelihood. If my whole life is devoted to ruining his, then my life will have meaning. I can live with that. I can accept my new role as villain.
That is not who you are. You are nice. You are kind. Everybody always calls you friendly. You can talk to anyone, you care about your community, you are filled with empathy. If you abandon that right now, even if it is only brief, you are saying that your virtues only matter when it is convenient for you. But you part with them the second they complicated things. Is that who you want to be?
I wrestled with this on the way home. I wrestled and wrestled and wrestled. My rationale mind knew better and was instructing me on staying true to my philosophy, but my emotional mind was telling me that no long-term harm will occur from indulging in your demonic desires. I was faced with a choice—I could stay true to my ethics and be one, comprehensive version of myself, or I could momentarily leave them behind, accept this darker version of myself, later returning to my ethics. If I chose the former, I would be the person everyone knows me to be—outspoken, intelligent, kind, compassionate. If I chose the latter, I would be accepting that I live a double life, one where I pretend to be a noble person, but neglect nobility when emotions overtake me. Who did I want to be?
If I lowered myself to meet my ex where he was at, I would find myself alongside him in Hell, likely growing used to the burns all over my body. Or, I could rise up, and feel the warmth of the sun and the sweet songs of the birds, prioritizing integrity over a moment of fulfilled vengeance.
Moreover, if I gave into that black venom, would I not be throwing all of my political philosophy out the door? You cannot be 90% good but also 10% bad. At least, I do not want to be. I’d like to be someone that is wholesome, so firm in my beliefs that nobody can make me question myself, and very sure of my sincerity. If I gave into this turbulent emotion, I would be omitting the value of my personality, proclaiming that one cruel man has the potential to change the rudimentary core of my being.
I had this string tugging on me, commanding me to do the only option presented to me—hurt him. The adverse feeling in my gut, so overbearing I could feel its weight, took hold of me. I took a deep breath and made a calculated decision on what I would do, who I would be. I sat on the couch and carefully pulled out the figurative scissors and cut myself loose.
I have the keys to my handcuffs. I have the strength within me, I have the desire to be free, and I have the power to be better. I would no longer be the person who erroneously accepts the fire because it is domineering. I would be someone brave enough to jump into the water, prioritizing my sanity rather than falling victim to the intoxicating feelings of spite that held me hostage for so long. The feelings I so desperately clung to in order to avoid more complicated emotions such as grief or hurt. I knew, that in cutting that string, I would be better this time, and I would never return to this violent side of myself. I knew I would make a home in that water, befriending the fish, the dolphins, and the life that exists within the coolness of the ocean. Nothing survives in fire for a reason. Nothing is meant to.
It was not, necessarily, because I believed my ex-boyfriend was worthy of my empathy or grace. Rather, it was because I did not think my ex-boyfriend should have the pull on me to change the fibers of my being. If I had allowed him this privilege, he would be gifted with knowing my character was fraudulent. And I never want my character to be something that exists only in theory rather than in fact. I want it to be something so certain, something nobody can deny at all, something nobody could ever disprove, that I am a good person. I cannot allow a monster to steal my soul. Worse, I cannot be the monster that willfully hands my soul over to the first demagogue that asks.
Once I cut the string, I liberated myself from a lifetime of anguish. I had essentially proclaimed to myself that I am, absolutely, strong enough to resist even my most vigilant emotions that sought to destroy me from the inside out. It was a testament to my love for myself, and I told myself that I deserved to be someone I was always proud of. If I am only a good person when people are good to me, then I am not good. I am merely a reflective surface. Though, if I am a good person while looking into the eyes of a repugnant person, I am certain that my character goes beyond the surface level. I am, wholeheartedly, good. At the end of the day, I only had myself to impress, and I deserve to be proud of myself all of the time. I need to be.
Later that day, I walked back to my apartment and I felt the sun atop my skin, and I felt free of the burden imposed on me since birth. I was no longer shackled by the idea of retribution but liberated by the idea of absolution. I can raise above the people who have hurt me, embracing a better world in the process.
I can now say that I find myself entirely healed from my past relationships and have united with a better version of myself. My days are filled with positivity and with hobbies I adore, bringing me back home to my most stable home–a home within myself. I just had to be willing to find my way back.
You see, there would be no severe long-lasting effects had I chosen to respond with rage. The world would keep moving, time would move forward, the sun would rise. But I am certain that every act of hostility, no matter how minute or how substantial, contributes to the demise of a better world. I felt a larger moral responsibility to do the right thing, because I knew that putting honor in the world would only lead to positive ripple effects. I am of the belief that the world has the potential to be entirely virtuous one day, and my actions of rising up rather than stooping down is one step closer to a world where good-will is the norm. I should not conform to the social order of immoral folks around me; if someone has a natural inclination to be a deceptive, inadequate person, then I must be strong in my resilience, careful not to succumb to that burdensome weight of grief, and be free of guilt. I refused to become someone I was ashamed of.
It is important to me that I stay true to who I am. I do not want to be someone that is too complex or multifaceted. I want to be simply good. I do not want to have to justify my callousness by saying, “They deserved it for wreaking havoc on me first,” because then, I am essentially granting leeway for ferocious emotions to be accepted so long as the instigator started it. You cannot pick or choose when to be good. You must be overwhelmingly good, this way nobody can ever take away from you what you know to be true—that deep down, you are filled with gentle light, not murderous fire.
In the end, I felt proud of myself for creating a new version of myself. I had spent years accepting the curse placed upon me, creating excuses for the savageness I exude when I feel betrayed. This time, I was self-reflective enough to take a step back and understand that I was not acting in a way that was aligned with my morals.
Every day we are faced with a choice on who we want to be. And every day, we get to reinvent ourselves. I spent years being someone that was overwhelmingly kind to all, but if you were able to find that one trigger, I would not even question how quickly I strayed from my good heartedness. But now, I am more certain of myself, more aware of my lapses, and more honest in how I approach this world. I am sure there will be days I falter, and I know I will get those urges of wrongdoing again, but luckily, I now have a more acute perception of myself, hyperaware of my iron will, certain of my perseverance against the most brutal flames that were eager to suck me into the most remorseless emotion known as anger.
Anger is unsustainable. Nobility is honorable.
Sahara Sajjadi 