CHAMELEON, Natalie B [novel24 txt] 📗

Sometimes I feel that I have no substance. That I have nothing inside of me; that I’m just a shell. And on the inside, it just depends on who I am around and what I am doing. I have said this several times to my psychiatrist that I often feel like a chameleon and that I am able to take shape and form of whoever I am around. It’s not easy having this power-I used to think until the moment I finished writing the sentence that it was a curse and a weakness I had. But now as I write, I see that it is a power that I can use and manipulate and use to my advantage. My mother used to tell me, “tell me who you walk with and I’ll tell you who you are’. I always knew she was referring to the kids in my high school and wanted only the best for me and didn’t want me hanging around bad people. I chose to do so anyway. I can’t say that I hung with murderers but I know that I didn’t hang with scholars. And I know this much about myself, if I had, I would not be in the situation I am in now.
I must find a way to separate myself from becoming the chameleon when I am around and in the company of people that to say the least, I don’t exactly admirer. So how can I do this? Disassociate myself in a way that will not come across obvious is what comes to mind first. But as you can see, I have an impulsive and compulsive personality so I tend to just go with the flow and ‘become’ my surroundings.
I need to change my surroundings. But how can I do so if I feel that I am stuck?
It has been almost a year that I have been living with my mother now after I lost my house, car and job. It’s strange because when I was growing up, I ran away from her all the time because I couldn’t stand her ways and her subtle abuse. As I am here again with her, I feel that she is raising me again and I finally get all the attention from her that I so needed all those years growing up. But when you are growing up at 39 years old, I see things in a different way. I can’t rebel, I can’t run away. I feel that I am in a rehab almost. I have no social connections it feels like, and I’m not sure how to get back in the world again and live.
I have yet to come to a conclusion, but I do know that being stagnant is getting me nowhere. When I get to the conclusion, it will be triumphant.

Publication Date: 11-14-2011

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