Letting the Trash Take Itself Out

In the age of the internet and digital age, most of us have faced online backlash, hate or trolling on some level over the years. If you do anything even remotely public facing you are bound to pick up haters (though I hate that word) and enemies. Sometimes you may not even know these people, but they have a problem with you.

I’ve also learned there’s no point in actively trying to quote unquote defeat your enemies. Trash takes itself out every single time.

The above quote by Taylor Swift really hit home with me when I read this interview. Like most of her words, it struck me like an arrow and I've been finding ways to implement them ever since.

Sometimes in the real world, there are times someone makes it their mission to wreck your life. Even if we messed up to start with, there will be people latching onto it to lift their own name and profile to show how good and just they are. Its a wild cycle but the world we live in.

Many times we end up seeing this culminate into wild online feuds, diss tracks and if things get too carried away it can carry over into real life altercations. The truth is, absolutely none of this is worth it. I've posted before about my own struggles. So, I won't spend a lot of time rehashing all of that.

I will say this as I've been on the aggressor end of online rage parties in the past. If you spend your energy chasing retribution or turning every disagreement into a war, the universe eventually steps in. I’m a firm believer in that kind of cosmic justice.

When we make it our whole personality to attack others or try and hurt others even if we think they deserve it, its only a matter of time before someone, somewhere will think we are on the deserving end. If there is one thing I've learned in my over half a century on this rock, its that no one is worth that much of my energy.

Revenge Is a Distraction from Recovery

When someone harms us (I'm not talking about things like crimes and such, that is a whole different set of events) or is out to get us, the first inclination is to hurt them back. Make them pay. Do to them what they did to us, and let them feel our pain.

Many times in my life, especially when I was younger, I spent a lot of time and energy trying to get people back. Either that, or I'd keep tabs on them, looking around or trying to find out what they were up to seeing if they were talking about me or moving in my same circles, sometimes hoping something awful would happen to them.

What took me far too long to register is that I was putting up barriers to my own healing and recovery. The more space I let others take up in my head, was keeping out space for good things and people who wanted success and peace for me. This is part of that running in circles I mentioned on previous blogs. Sometimes in our healing we catch ourselves repeating patterns before we can pull ourselves out of it. My focus on revenge and retribution was one of them.

Peace Over Proving

There have been many times in my life I've lost friends because they never even bothered to hear my side of the story. They saw or heard fragments from one party and decided to run with it on their own. This was hurtful and even traumatic.

The first response is to want to prove ourselves. Convince everyone our side of events is the correct one and hope people will believe us over them. One thing I found is this. It doesn't matter. Anyone who is close to you who will immediately believe the worst of you the second they hear it, was never in your corner to begin with.

When any kind of backlash or attacks start, people will begin taking sides before you've had a chance to utter a word. From that point on, anything you say will just be dissected and parsed into whatever people want it to mean. So, you have to protect what is most important, your peace.

Withdrawing into yourself sometimes can be the best thing you do. Some may think you are running and hiding, but you don't owe anyone a fight. You also don't have to self immolate yourself for the appeasement of people who already hate you. You cannot put a price on your mental health. Protect it at all costs.

What Trash Taking Itself Out Looks Like in Real Life

I've seen this take many forms throughout my life. I never had to lift a finger. I won't name examples, but the fact is when people are toxic, they may have others fooled for a time. But eventually they can't resist showing their true faces. When this happens, they invite their own demise. We may have been their collateral damage along the way, but they end up doing far more damage to themselves in the end.

That damage could be financial loss, legal problems or just permanently destroying their own reputation. Whatever it is, its hard not to feel a weird sense of satisfaction. I try not to take joy in other people's misfortune, even if its someone who hates me. It would be easy to give in to, but I don't like how that feels or the energy that goes with it.

I do sit back and realize they likely manifested this onto themselves. I truly believe the Universe returns to us what we put out there. If we put out hate and negativity, or if we make it a habit of backstabbing and stepping on people to get ahead. Eventually, we'll be the stepping stone to someone else. No matter how slick and cunning you think you are, there is always someone smarter, slicker and more clever. It took some real torment both outwardly and inwardly for me to learn all of these things. I do wish I had known this sooner.

In the end, don’t need to fight battles that were never mine to begin with. I don’t need to prove my worth to people who’ve already made up their minds. The greatest revenge has always been peace, living well, healing deeply, and refusing to let bitterness take root. So I’ll keep moving forward, lightened by the truth that, eventually, the trash always takes itself out.

I’m building a small community here of people who care about art, healing, and real conversations around mental health. If that speaks to you, becoming a paid subscriber is a way to help sustain it.