Rude Zombies

If you’re in the market for someone to gaslight, I’m your girl.

I’m an easy mark, easy to trick, easy to fool.

I send a weekly newsletter about writing, creativity, and making space between who we are and who we tell ourselves we are. This week was about lies, liars, and when you get to stop waiting for the zombies to eat your face.

I would be the dumbest character in a horror movie, someone who asks a zombie if they’re feeling ok right before getting their face eaten off. I understand that this is not an impressive flex, nor does it help that I do most of the work myself, hovering on the precipice of certainty, ignoring inconsistencies, handing out second chances like free samples at Costco. 

It’s always seemed like my feelings have gone through committee. Would anyone mind if I have an adverse reaction to this, or should I wait until we leave the restaurant? Can I get mad, or will that upset you by drawing attention to your actions? Can I say no, that’s not ok, or was that always a rhetorical question?

It takes me a minute to get that someone is lying to me, because, of course, they lie about lying. And I have been conditioned to give them the benefit of the doubt. Not that I don’t know that I’m being lied to, I’m just supposed to roll over it like a conversational speed bump. Because otherwise it would be like saying I am more important than you are, my distrust overrides what you have just said. 

And, I mean, that’s just rude. 

So, I fell into a story where I didn’t see liars to jettison from my life; I saw pain to overcome, anger to endure with mushroom clouds and fireworks attached that would burn me out until I was exhausted. And then, angst discharged, I could slide right back into the bad relationship or terrible decision. 

This noise, this noise in my head. It told me I had to stay in place, that I didn’t have the right to kick someone away from me, no matter what they did, and then used smoke and mirrors to make it look like I was standing up for myself. I was distracted from my feelings of helplessness and lack of control by my fits of anger. I wrote about it, but didn’t go back and read what I had written. So I didn’t see that this was my pattern, leaving the zombies free to swarm me at any time. 

I had to write in layers to get to the bottom of this nonsense; my reasons for ignoring this stuff in the first place went deep. Holding a liar accountable was uncomfortable; taking action against it was unbearable. Imposing my embarrassing, messy, inconvenient feelings on everyone felt like I was trying to sneak into the center row seat in a silent, packed theater twenty minutes after a dramatic play had started, excuse me, excuse me, sorry, excuse me, excuse me, sorry about that, sorry, sorry, sorry, thanks, excuse me. 

When I wrote about how the restaurant, the friend group, or the other people could no longer be a reason to keep my feelings wrapped in a towel of silence, it felt weird because it was about me, but the noise made me think I had been protecting them. How could that be? I couldn’t even stop a zombie from eating my face. The noise was wrong, and I didn’t understand how wrong until I got to the part where I took the relationships the lies were tied to and set them on fire. 

Ignoring yourself takes a lot of energy. Alternating between obeying the noise and bowing to anger takes all the energy, and you should save some if you’re going to survive the zombies. 

Be hard to gaslight. Write above the noise.