Nightmares…

“My dad was an obsessed bastard! All that crap he dumped on me about protecting Sam – that was his crap! He’s the one who couldn’t protect his family. He’s the one that let Mom die, who wasn’t there for Sam. I always was! He wasn’t fair! I didn’t deserve what he put on me. And I don’t deserve to go to Hell.”

Dean’s worse nightmare – himself. The fact that no one cares. That he was just a tool. That he deserves all of the pain he gets. That he brought this on himself.

I suppose, his worse nightmare is that his dad is right.

And for one, this is why John Winchester deserved to die and I don’t miss him. He was abusive and I will listen to nothing else. I don’t care how he might have redeemed himself by selling his soul or whatever – I don’t care. One act does not undo the damage. Just because someone started good or ended good doesn’t undo the bad.

Just because he didn’t hit them or leave them or whatever…. He didn’t let them choose their own path in life, he trained them to be his soldiers and tools from a very young age, he never allowed them their autonomy…

Abuse doesn’t even have to be present to cause damage. Sometimes it’s a memory. Sometimes it’s habit. Sometimes it’s an entire dysfunctional childhood that causes your own self to perpetuate the abuse on your own. Even when there is no abuse. even when there isn’t even ill will.

And yeah. I wonder why that ending affected me so much.

I don’t watch Supernatural for any deep reason – I watch Jessica Jones for deep reasons of watching someone taking control of her life and fixing herself. I just watch Supernatural so I have an excuse to know the plot, and because the brother’s are amusing at times.  Goodness, the show is terrifying at times and I certainly can’t watch tons at a time. So the fact that there was something so….meaningful for me was surprising.

I am not my father. I am not my mother. As I have said so many times before: my choices are my own now. I have a responsibility towards myself now. Sure, I moved out for my siblings, so I could help them, but… I deserved to be saved too.

As Bella pointed out, that is something she has been telling me since forever ago, but it didn’t really hit me until a couple of weeks ago. And yeah, I might be smart when it comes to analysing meaning in telly shows or characters, or in writing, but I am an idiot.  Let’s just get that out of the way. Sure, I am smart, but….I am not, at the same time.

But it is something that never occurred to me. That I was worth saving for my own sake. That I deserved better than I got. That I deserved a chance to make something of myself. That I deserved to decide things for myself. That I deserved to be happy, and to be taken seriously. Because I never left for myself. In the end, what finally pushed me to go was my siblings – the fact that they did not deserve to be abused. It wasn’t until now that I realised I was worth the same consideration.

On a different note: things that flat out infuriate me: (the punctuation is incorrect, I know. I don’t care, darlings.) All of the women who are all like ‘we’re so fat. We have rolls. We’re so ugly.’ And then there is little old me in the corner weighing way over two hundred pounds and definitely overweight, and I have to look at this tiny girl with a waist measurement under thirty inches, and hips that are maybe at most thirty-five inches and I just want to shake sense into her.

And then I want to go hunt down every person who has had a say in destroying her self esteem and making her think she is fat. Because they aren’t. They really, really aren’t. I mean, if people look at me and don’t immediately think ‘fat’ (and for some odd reason, they don’t…) then they have no standing to call themselves fat. Every woman has rolls. Every woman has thick thighs. That’s biology. That’s natural. If you don’t, something is wrong, or you are a super athlete. You are neither? Then for heaven’s sake, stop letting people tell you what is right for you and stand up for yourself!

I am the first to admit that my history has made me fast to react to things that probably aren’t meant the way I take them. And as annoying as that is to me, it causes serious problems with others and I am trying to work on that.

But I am so sick of women being put down or manipulated or told they just have emotions or hormones and that they don’t know their place, and that they don’t know better. I’m sick of Bible verses being used to shame girls into things – of boys getting off scot free because of decades of gender roles. And now I am sick of those decades of gender roles poisoning ‘gender’ itself. Just…just back off! Christ is head of the Church, and the Church is his Bride – but guess what? He also kind of left us on our own!

I’m not this great submissive woman. I’m not the sort of person who will take anything without question just because it is in the Bible. Sorry, ain’t gonna happen. I’ve seen too much of the Bible twisted, and I am not putting myself in that position again. I have a brain and I am going to use it for myself and this is my body and my clothes and my makeup and my entertainment and if you don’t like it?

I have been alone a long time. I am not meant to be popular. Perhaps I will always be alone. But I will not continue trying to unmake myself to fit someone else’s will for me. I will be Slytherin and Gothic and Vintage and Feminist and Sexy and I will fit in my own skin and that is all that matters. All that matters is that I am who I am.

I’m not entirely sure what the point of this post was supposed to be. All I know is that I am learning new things about myself and my value every day, and that scene resonated so much with me. Getting attacked and confronted with the self-image that I cling to, and realising it is all lies. That I am better than what my father wanted. That I am not him. That I can fight against his lies. I just…..

Yeah.

The thing about nightmares is that they are quintissentially false. Sure, they may have a lot of elements of truth to them (my worst nightmares that woke me up were just of day to day life with my dad) but they are dreams. They are fantasies – imaginations. To boil it down: lies.

I am not bound by any nightmare. I can wake up from them – I can change them. I am powerful and strong and my own.