How I See, 👀 is Who I Am

How I See, Is Who I Am  

To define a thing or a person is to cut off your vision from seeing other versions of that person, that thing. 

How you see, is who you are.  

I thought to myself—how is it that I look at someone and see all these amazing qualities, yet I’m shocked when they ghost me, ignore me, block me, hate me?  

A video popped up today: The Twilight Zone: The Most Impactful Twist in All of Horror by PolterGibbst. It tells the story of a woman wrapped in bandages, trapped in her own personal world of darkness, desperate to take them off.  

I feel that way. Like I don’t belong. And ever since I started to see more last month, I wonder—what’s all there? 

Link to story of seeing more: https://www.awenomali.com/post/do-you-want-to-see-what-s-in-the-space-between-shadow-world-how-i-let-wrath-swallow-me

It’s as if I have a veil of bandages over my eyes. The narrator says, "She’s had them so long.  She can’t tell day from night. So long they’ve become part of her face."  

Oh. It’s the mask, the persona—the one I feel forced to wear in this world.  

He says inside her bandages had become her safe place.  

My exoskeleton. Tough, cheerful customer service exterior. Because when I let down my guard, I’m so often attacked—for attacking—when I’m not even attacking. At least, it’s never my intention.  

The woman is worried. "What if it doesn’t work?"  

The guy says, "Each person is given a chance to fit into society." 

Oh, I see now. I see exactly what this is about.  

I just got fired two days ago. Worked for four hours. I’ve said it too many times to count—if I take a job, some fucking catastrophe almost always happens.  

They fired me because the director of hospitality said my hair color was too rosy and I couldn’t wear my Medusa piercing. I offered to put in a clear one. She refused. Even though the employee handbook said I could wear a stud in or near the nose. She said they allow piercings in the nose, the eyebrow, plugs in the ears, tattoos—but not that tiny pearly stud above my upper lip.  

I was pissed. But I know that’s not why I was fired.  

Me right after getting home from being told to leave. I wasn't fit for the front desk.

It’s because I go into work with fucking gauze wrapped around my face. 

Fake as fuck! 

I can’t work front desk and be myself—I’d be fired in a heartbeat. But they wanted me to work there as much as I really wanted to work there.  

I didn’t. I don’t.  That’s not what I want to do with my life.  

I want to write. I want to create.  

But I’m broke as fuck!  And I’ve got kids I need to pay child support for.  I need a place to sleep besides the gutter.  

This theme of two sides of myself—it probably started last year when I worked the front desk at Yellowstone.  

These stories, they are a spiral. Circling the same experience. But since it’s a spiral, it’s always a little different.  But very similar themes.

We evolve. Or we devolve.  

I walk in there and act like I give a shit about these things. I don’t.  

Fake as fuck.  

The first trailer I saw on this theme in my life was The Substance, about a year ago.  

The dude says, "They want something new."  

The narration goes: "Have you ever dreamt of a younger version of yourself? One single injection unlocks your DNA and will release another version of you. This is the Substance."  

It hit me!!

Poisons. Poisons are medicines. Injections.  

I was planning on some NAD+ infusion. Losing weight. Getting younger. Getting healthier.  

The devil. Kai.  

"You're hired."  

This is what I have to do to work for someone else.  

Put on a total lie.  

He says, "The perfect balance. Don't ever forget—you are one. You can't escape from yourself."  

Libra. Justice. The scales. Balance.  

Kai. He was only 26. I was 43.  

(Stories with Kai: https://www.awenomali.com/blog/categories/kai )

Maybe that was my injection. Right after I saw him last—and he escaped!  Does he make me feel young?  He made me feel like myself.  

In the Substance, she ends up overdoing it with the fake self, turning into a grotesque monster on stage.  

Did I turn into a monster?  

I had that dream—the woman in the yellow dress, standing on stage, everyone booing her, throwing lemons at her.  

Is this how I’m seen?  

It’s not my eccentric makeup, my piercings, or my hair that makes me fake.  It’s everything going on in my head.  It’s the way I feel like I have to hide from the world just to work the fucking job.  

Then there was The Ugly Stepsister trailer…  

It starts out:  

"Do you ever feel inferior, unworthy, ashamed, rejected, alone, scared, unloved, invisible, angry, ugly?!?!"  

Absofuckinglutely!!!!

Used. Rejected. Betrayed. Ghosted—over and over.  

Taken advantage of at my jobs. Unseen.  Looked over.

The horrendous lengths she goes to, just to win the Prince—nose surgery, sewing eyelashes on, eating a tapeworm.  And toward the end—chopping off her own toes.  Her mother pushes her through it, approves of the torture.  When she accidentally chops off the wrong toes—her mother chops off the other ones.  

And though every single job I've had in the last six years has set me back—catastrophe after catastrophe—my mother still has the balls to suggest I keep doing it.  

Keep torturing myself.  Just to survive in this fucking society.  

But the Prince still picks her sister.  Cinderella.  

And I realize—it wasn’t the grotesque acts.  It was her not loving herself.  Trying to be something she wasn’t—just to win approval.  

Just like me.  Messaging them like crazy.  Trying to win back everyone I lost.  Overlooking the fact that they don’t fucking want me.  "I’m going crazy, I’ve lost my mind, best friend insanity, I’ve lost my mind!"  

They call me CRAZY!!

Me

The Bandages  

In The Twilight Zone episode, the narrator says, "Each person is given the chance to fit into society."  

But all she wants is to go sit in the fucking garden and forget about the grotesque monster that she is.  

But remember what they said in The Substance:  

"They both are you."  

She was trying to be like everyone else.  But if she’s not—she’s got to go live with all the other freaks.  

Just like me.   try to act like I care about all this stuff.  

But I don’t.  It’s so stupid.  Fake.  

She starts freaking out.  "Pull the bandages off. Take it off me. Take it off me!"  She wants out of her prison.  

Like I want out of mine.  

And then—April 2025.  I was at the doctor. Twice.  

I she Hulked—And ripped all the cords off me—  

"Cut this fucking cast off of me! Or I’m walking to Ace Hardware, getting a saw, and doing it myself!"  

My cast at the hospital

The doctor.  Who is the doctor?  Then there was the evil doctor.  My second visit to the hospital—same day.  

But the doctor isn’t just a literal doctor.  Lately, I’ve been wondering if it’s Ezra.  

(Stories with Ezra: https://www.awenomali.com/blog/categories/ezra )

The doctor starts wondering if it’s better for him to just separate himself from the patient altogether.  Because he feels things.  Almost as if she’s human, like him.  

But he’s seen her face.  Ezra has seen my face?  Has he seen me—*under* the mask I wear?  

It’s easier for them to think of Patient 307 as human when she’s covered in bandages.  

When I’m faking it—acting like a normal human.  

The doctor says it will be easier to dismiss these feelings once the bandages are removed.  Once he sees her ugly face.  

Finally—the time comes.  They begin removing the bandages.  Slowly.  She starts to see the light filtering through the gauze.  

Things may be cloudy now.  So long as I’ve got that mask on—  I’m not seeing the truth.  The light.  It’s the log in my own eye.  

She asks the doctor if she can be put to death if she’s still the same.  Death.  Ezra is also Death.  He assists with me, in my transformation.  

If the freak is still the freak under there.  If the ugly stepsister is still ugly.  If Demi is still a decrepit, horrifying blob of flesh.  

The doctors and nurses stand around her.  But all we can see—are their shadows.  The shadows!  The shadows I saw all around me.  It was like I was in a hospital bed.  Surrounded.  Figures—everywhere.  

And when I felt like a victim—because no one would respond to me—  They scattered frantically—  As if the face they were seeing on me was horrifying.  Scary.  

But when I humbled myself—  Got grateful—  Realized my own lack of understanding—  The Hell I was seeing went away.  

The doctor says that if she’s still the same—  The only option is to be moved to a community of others like her.  

Others that share…  

Unveiling  

As the bandages come off…  We see their shadows.  

The doctor and nurses stand back in horror—  

"She’s a freak!!!"  

"No change. No change at all!!"  The doctor says.  

Knowing—she never fit into their unified society.  She makes a run for it.  They lunge for her—  Sedative in hand.  

But in the desert—  (Desert story: https://www.awenomali.com/blog/categories/desert )

I had to visit the doctor.  And he was trying to kill me.  

Death.  Death was Ezra.  Assisting in my transformation.  

But I escaped.  

November 24, 2024  the Dream

I remember having a lot of sex in churches, on the stairs, and down the hallways specifically.  This pissed off a lot of people. People wanted to capture me and kill me like I broke a law, but I'm not sure what I did.  

My sexual energy, my passion, the red, the root, my Kundalini. They don’t like it. 

There was this girl on stage. I remember watching her, and she did something to me, but I don’t remember what it was. It was exposed—on stage. She was wearing a yellow dress. This girl who did something to me was on stage, and I remember being happy that people threw lemons at her.  

And then there were people trying to catch me. Most of the dream was people trying to capture me. They even caught me once and sent me to prison. 

I remember thinking, "You think you got one over on me?" It was like I was pretending they caught me, and I quickly escaped. I was uncapturable. 

There were so many obstacles put in my way. It was like I was Peter Pan. I remember jumping into the ocean, swimming, climbing through obstacle courses of caves, jumping off the top of a mountain, and gliding over snowy peaks—they could not catch me. 

I gathered followers, unusual ones, the outcasts. They admired me. I helped them. They were always so excited when I got away.  

Back in the hospital, we see the girl’s face. What she thought was horrible was absolutely beautiful. 

And the doctor and nurses—hideous. 

The girl had spent her whole life believing she was grotesque because that’s what they told her. But it was all perspective.  

"I’m beautiful!"  

The doctor wanted me to be happy, even though he thought I was hideous. He introduced me to someone. A man like me. He was a hot dude, and his body reminded me of Kai. He was like her. 

My sexual energy, my passion, the root, my Kundalini. Kai matched it.  

Whether it was Kai or not, it was me loving the beautiful monster that I am. And when I show it to the world, that beautiful monster will meet me. I wonder who it is—if it was a miracle that it’s him or if it’s just a symbol, a mirror of someone like me.  

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. How I see is how I am. So long as I see the monster in me as hideous, the hideous monsters see me as hideous. This has layers.  

If I see someone a certain way—if I think I don’t like it, if I think they should have done it differently—I judge them. I become the condemner. And if I ignore it, if I ignore my judgment, they ignore me. Condemn me. I condemn myself. It doesn’t go away just because I ignore it.  

How do I know I condemn myself? When they say, "You’re this, you’re that," and I feel hurt. I feel attacked. But imagine being cut by an angry person, hearing every insult, and never taking it personally.  

How I see them is who I am. I define what I observe. I am the process of defining. And when I cut off the process by definition, I cut off myself. I am not a thing. I am the process.  

All the wonderful qualities I see in a person—maybe they’re there, maybe they’re not. But I am the one who sees something to adore. Again, I have cut them off to being something other. Trying to control. Trying to capture. A sneaky little devil, I am.  

If I need that adoration back, it’s because I don’t recognize my own possession of those qualities. But I am the one defining the observation. This is my world. My experience. Mine to have. I am the creator of it—to know who I am.  

Reality is the result of me. Any version of a person could exist in my world, and I define why they are there for me. Have I condemned myself to hell? Most certainly.  

But I can pull that log from my eye every time I see it. Every time I notice. And I can see—with new eyes.  

Most certainly.  

And the shadow beings—they became frantic. The darkness towered over me. But I choose to be curious about them. I choose humility. I choose faith that it’s for me.  And that I am not above or below anything but I'm both places. 

And by believing it—that’s why it is. 

I don’t have to condemn myself anymore.  Neither do you.  If you don’t want to.  

If you find yourself facing what you fear, remember this is a part of you your not seeing what is it that your see?

I can't wait to meet the beautiful monsters like me!

By Sonya Herrera

✨🔥🏵️AWEnomALi🏵️🔥✨