There’s the bad guy (Tony Montana- Scarface)

I can’t remember the first time I saw Al Pacino as “Scarface”. In fact, I had to look it up to see that the film came out in 1983. Seeing that the film came out just over 4 months (12/1/83) after my birth, it’s safe to say I wasn’t an early adopter fan of the now classic. Regardless, one particular scene that has become quite famous is when Tony’s world is crumbling down around him and he gets into an explosive argument with his wife, played by Michelle Pfeiffer. After his wife storms out of the black tie restaurant following a diatribe in which she tells him how pathetic he is, Tony drunkenly rises from his seat to leave and stumbles around yelling to the horrified patrons how they “Need people like me” so [they] can “point their finger and say there’s the bad guy!” While this is obviously an extreme example, seeing the scene again made me think that Tony may be on to something…

It seems that for as advanced as we all believe the human mind to be, humans tend to think in very black and white terms; usually trying to define things as either good or bad, finding a villain in most all situations. Perhaps it is a way to escape personal responsibility for a situation or to excuse our results/actions, but identifying the proverbial “bad guy” is proof that we’re not him. By now, More Than a Speed Bump’s readers have probably grown accustomed to my seemingly random thoughts, but allow me to give some clarification on where this latest posts theme: Does this need to find order and name each influence in our lives as good or bad possibly drive maladaptive behavior? And even worse; failing to identify the villain, could this need for finding the good and bad “guy” (figuratively speaking, and not meant to infer that gender!) cause one to become their own villain?

Enough figurative speak for a single blog post, with a lot of help from and work with some incredibly patient individuals, a couple patterns have clearly shown themselves in how I seem to live: (1) I often find myself with a need to have a definitive answer, for life to fit in a Yes or No, Right or Wrong, Black or White paradigm. And (2), failing this simple schematic’s showing itself, or even existing, I will often become the villain that I’m looking for. Perhaps this manifests as a self-sabotaging behavior or creating interpersonal conflict(s), but either way it sure does resemble throwing a proverbial stick in my own spokes.

While I’ve certainly been blessed in many areas of my life and received incredible amounts of support, and I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, I find myself continuously being the villain in my own story. Whether it’s that survivors guilt complex still rearing it’s head, an insatiable need for control, or attempting to make sense of this unscripted life, I find myself in a manufactured crisis most days. In an odd way, things were a lot simpler in the early days of recovery from alcoholism, disordered eating, or TBI; the problem was well defined, the cause of my struggle was right there in flashing neon colors! I could name the bad guy.

I know what you’re thinking, “Well that’s great, as the challenges become less extreme, life must be all sunshine and roses!” In a way, that is if the term “sunshine and roses” includes the day to day struggles of life faced by all of us mere mortals, you’d be right. However, and I don’t believe that I’m unique in this fact, I find myself repeating things that don’t serve me. Do not be alarmed dear reader: I’m sober and not in any imminent danger; but whether it’s intentional lack of follow through, becoming overwhelmed by the trivial, or my disordered diet of ice cream and cereal, The “Bad Guy” is always around.