I am a hero because of where I have been.

I read a couple blog posts yesterday, however, which would like to deny my rightful claim to hero-dom. That’s because the deniers clearly have no fucking clue what they are talking about.

Either that, or they are mixed up in bad word choices.

In which case, your semantics are getting on me.

They are crossing the line and touching me and stealing my oxygen and I’m totally telling on you. Because the lies you are spreading are harmful bullshit and I am a hero so I won’t fucking having it.

Here are two titles which seriously pissed me off.

Their messages might be well-intended, but they miss the mark.

So I hate them. Like, passionately.

Obvs.

1. “You are never a victim.”

2. “Failure is a choice.”

Okay, you guys, enough.

I get that we are in the age of spirituality and inspiration and self-help and all that crap.

And I’m glad of it. I need those things, and I’m grateful for them, because they help me get through the shitty times.

 

Even though I am a hero, I rely on the kindness of strangers to get by.

But enough.

It’s one thing to encourage me to be positive.

It’s quite another to tell me I’m an ass-hat if I don’t get happy quickly. That’s not how we’re all wired, you guys. It’s harder for some of us to get on track, which is why upbeat messages and positive affirmations are so necessary for those of us who suck at choosing to be happy.

We rely on the steady diet of motivational mantras to pull us up.

Which is what makes me a fucking hero – DUH.

That should be obvious. But apparently it’s not. Because just like it’s difficult for some people to be happy, it’s likewise difficult for some people to get the concept that happiness isn’t merely a bottomless and instant natural resource.

Being happy is worthless if it means you’re a dick. 

Encouraging me to take your hand – that’s awesome.

Telling me I suck major donkey balls if I can’t quite reach your hand right now? That’s cruel bullshit and I’m already sick of it.

Excuse the fuck out of me for not being born with a hippy spirit.

Don’t get me wrong.

I fucking love hippies. I regularly visit Yellow Springs, a hippy town near us, and wish I could live there.

I wish I had hippy parents who brought me up in a hippy way. I completely adore hippies. I love their carefree attitudes, their speech and mannerisms, their bumper stickers, their patchouli smell…

 

I’m a hippy in my heart.

Unfortunately, we can’t all be fucking hippies in practice.

Some of us have to be hippy-admirers filled with hippy envy. Some of us have to WORK at obtaining and maintaining a hippy attitude. This WORK? …is why I am a hero.

I’m a statistic gone awry, you guys.

Shit happened to me.

Not just one kind of shit, but lots of different kinds of shit. Sometimes it was lumpy, and sometimes it was wet, and sometimes it was explosive diarrhea. Anyone who walks away from that kind of shit is a goddamn hero and no two questions about it.

To deny the depths of the lows from which I have climbed disrespects the heights to which I have climbed. {Go on and TWEET that. You know you want it.}

I WAS a victim, and I did NOT choose failure. Fuck you for telling me I’m wrong on this. You weren’t there. You don’t know me. You don’t know my life. You don’t know my losses, and you certainly don’t know my successes.

If I don’t get to own my sorrows, how on earth am I supposed to own my achievements?

If I don’t get to personally defeat my Depression, why the hell should I get to wear the crown of Survivor?

You are trying to rob me of my personal hero – myself.

I won’t let you do it.

You go be a hippy, and that’s fine. Hooray for you. It must be nice to have lived such a happy, wonderful, pain-free life. I no longer envy you that.

Because if you didn’t endure the hardships, you aren’t a hero.

You’re a soft, flaccid thing.

And I’m betting the word “flaccid” brings the same image to your mind as it brings to mine.

Yep – if you imagined a limp dick, that’s exactly what I’m saying you are.

As for me…

I am a hero. I’m not glad of where I have been, but I am very glad of where it has brought me. Had I not been a victim, I wouldn’t be able to appreciate my life. I wouldn’t understand what my #1 Personal Commandment even means.

“Happy is a Choice, so pick it and Get There.”

Had failure never happened to me, I wouldn’t know the success this message has wrought.

If you are one of the a-holes passing this shit along, I urge you to re-read your words, and then delete them.

You are doing more harm than good.

You are robbing survivors of their greatest treasure: their strength to endure when shit goes down.

A hero isn’t someone who is happy all the time.

A hero is someone who gets through the tears and eventually learns to smile again.

I’m not a hero for the tears I have cried or for landing on my feet.

I am a hero merely for living through the hardest years of my life.

I am hero for not killing myself.

I am a hero for waking up every morning.