When I first started digitizing my journals from my childhood, reading through them I realized that I held a lot of the same beliefs I have now, I just expressed them differently at different ages.
This seems like an obvious thing, but it was kind of fascinating to me to read through it all and realize that my belief system, my morals, my understanding of the world around me was formed very, very early … starting around 5th and 6th grade.
I started learning about and embracing stoicism very early and while I didn’t understand every single thing I read in those afternoons spent at the library, I found the old masters words to be easier to understand than some other more modern stuff. At my reading level in elementary school, Marcus Aurelius was quite easy to understand …
As I’ve expressed here many times before … stoicism helped me survive a childhood of abuse with wisdom instead of anger.
Something I expressed, as early as 11 years old … was this idea of “the consequences of truth”. I wrote in my journal about the fact that I learned early that my parents hated truth … that they ultimately preferred lies. They didn’t want to know how I really felt about anything, they wanted me to lie constantly.
Truths carried consequences and I learned at a young age, like many people, that the word “consequence” meant something bad (It actually does not at all mean that in any way).
I think the reason so many people mistakenly believe that the word “consequence” means “negative results” even though it DOESN’T AT ALL, is because this was something that was taught to us by authority figures who preferred lies … mainly because that’s all they knew how to do themselves.
When I was in elementary school I wrote about “the consequence of truth” often in my journals.
What it meant to be honest when you’re surrounded by liars is that you become one as well, to survive.
In middle school that idea changed and I wrote
𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝 𝙙𝙤𝙚𝙨𝙣’𝙩 𝙨𝙚𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙛𝙧𝙚𝙚. 𝙄𝙩 𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙞𝙣 𝙖 𝙥𝙧𝙞𝙨𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙛 𝙖 𝙣𝙚𝙬 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮. 𝙄 𝙙𝙤𝙣’𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙠 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙗𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙖 𝙥𝙧𝙞𝙨𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝘼𝙒𝘼𝙍𝙀 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙞𝙣. 𝙄𝙩’𝙨 𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙞𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙤 𝙗𝙚 𝙖 𝙥𝙧𝙞𝙨𝙤𝙣𝙚𝙧 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙙𝙤𝙣’𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙯𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙖𝙧𝙚. 𝙄 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝. 𝙄 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬. 𝘽𝙚𝙘𝙖𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙄 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙘𝙝𝙤𝙤𝙨𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙚𝙨𝙘𝙖𝙥𝙚 𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙤𝙛 𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙢𝙮 𝙬𝙝𝙤𝙡𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙯𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙄 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤.
Elaine Barlow
That was the beginning of my building on the same idea I had in elementary school.
By the time I got to college, I wasn’t writing as much in my journals, not daily … but I was still refining things and I ended up kind of rolling this into the idea that:
There can be no change without discomfort.
which I have actually seen a bunch of people say now that I am an adult.
I think I understood this though even before I was 12 years old … “the consequence of truth” was that very same clarity just in a way that only a child could articulate it.
When I look back at what I understood at 10 or 11 years old … I kind of do have moments of amazement. Not filled with ego or anything like that … just that I know that being highly aware … “woke” if you will … at such a young age actually made things so much harder for me … deeply difficult and really lonely.
At the same time without being able to SEE, I don’t think I would have survived on wisdom. I would have survived on anger and willpower and grown into a broken person.
Children are VERY AWARE and have a keen sense of truth … they are often highly sensitive until it gets beaten out of them or groomed out of them and they’re made to feel bad about having and expressing feelings and thoughts.
I knew a lot. I saw my parents as people very young. Not as authority, but just people. Broken, lying, weak people. I had very little respect for them and the way they wielded abuse to try and control their children. It was clear as day.
Many things were.
Stoicism saved my life. It saved my mind and soul from needless torment and unrealistic expectations. I focused on MYSELF and what I could control, not outside things and madness and the lie of “hope”.
Writing; the ability to articulate and chronicle my understanding of the people and the world also saved my sanity.
My family is all about denying history and gaslighting me into being the villain and the problem, but I have all the receipts I need to know the truth of the life I survived.
I still write … obviously. And I still believe in speaking my truth. I do so more publicly because I believe that when people share their stories, their learnings, their mistakes, their wisdom … that it helps others and helps people realize they aren’t alone … something I wish I’d known at an early age. I still believe in chronically my journey forward into being the best person I can be … and I still believe in absolute candor and honest communication.
Being on social media is not unlike the abusive, gaslighting, negative environment that I grew up in.
Being on social media is still being surrounded by angry, broken, weak, lying people who prefer to attack and abuse others instead of working on themselves.
Being on social media and being my authentic self and expressing my thoughts, feelings, and opinions, still attracts abusers and mentally and emotionally dysregulated people.
My life hasn’t really changed at all in that regard.
I have chronic pain from MCTD instead of beatings and switch whippings.
I have anxiety about going outside and having some random insane white person shoot me for the color of my skin instead of locking myself in my room scared that my father or mother would come home angry and take that out on me.
I am a neurodivergent, agoraphobic HSP aphant with synesthesia instead of a “retard” with “learning disabilities” or “slow” or “a weirdo” or “too sensitive”.
Times have kinda changed … I guess.