I Saw the Villain in Myself

There are two obvious moments when a villain enters the scene.

The first moment. They walk into a room. A real heaviness and tension. You know this guy is up to no good and it shows. Fear and ruthlessness are worn like fixed adornments, malcontent oozes like from a festering wound. Basically, just a really evil looking dude.

The second moment. The likable, charming, funny guy. The happy-go-lucky type who has been your friend since you were kids. You know this guy is on your side and in your corner…until he isn’t. The unsuspecting “friend”. They typically have gone so far out of their way to win you over that you’d never suspect their villainous betrayal. The extent of the manipulation is so deep that only when the reveal happens was the truth so obvious.

It may seem like the second example is not “obvious” as the title suggests, but we’ve all seen enough movies that we can “see it coming a mile away” right? I think we all knew Anakin Skywalker was going to turn to the Darkside and betray Obi-wan and there was no coming back for Walter White. But these are stories with clear villainous intent. In real life, villains may be much harder to define and distinguish.

There is also a third moment that is…well…not so obvious. For all you know, this person could be a decorated officer or the most well-respected person in town. They could be your grandmother who everyone would agree is the sweetest person on the planet. They may seem on the outside like just a normal, decent, loving person, but they are not without fault. Let me draw this out with a personal example.

The last words I ever heard from my father’s mouth was “Do you know what a kid is good for? Spending all of your money on them.” Ouch. Talk about some sharp words that cut to the quick. Might as well have shoved a knife in my chest. As a 16 year old kid, you really take that to heart and start to think thoughts like:

“Maybe I am just a waste of money…”

“I’m not good enough…”

“Even my own dad thinks I suck…”

”Clearly I’m not worth a whole lot…”

Any self-worth that was built over time as an awkward, anti-social, newly moved to a new country teen, was broken to bits. The silverlining is that my dad was drunk off his a** and I don’t think he actually meant what he said. As a disclaimer, I’ve never actively hated my dad for saying that, but man did it sure stick with me as a reminder that words can break more than sticks and stones.

When I first share this story to someone, they instantly vilify my dad. “How could a dad say that to their own kid?” They think he must be the villain in my story and feel for the pain that both his presence and absence caused. But as we’ve already acknowledged, villains can be more complex than we realize and their past is hardly ever straightforward.

Have you ever said or done something even remotely similar to your own children, family member, friend, or acquaintance? I’m not necessarily talking like self-worth destroying comments, but even the small relishing in others misfortune? A little payback. Maybe a snap at someone who didn’t deserve it. Maybe a lot of snap at someone who did?

Here are some things I remember saying to my kids that I wish I would have said less, wish I could take back:

“Can you please just stop all of your whining?”

“No one cares, no one wants to hear about it.”

“Can you stop fighting? This is a stupid thing to fight about.”

“Why do you think this was a good idea? Guess what…it wasn’t.”

“Hey, please stop that, you are being annoying…”

I may be paraphrasing, but that’s the embarrassing gist of it. It hurts reading it as I write this down. Have I not just become just like my dad? Have I not done the same thing that was done to me? You could argue the severity…and maybe you’ve said something worse, but it doesn’t deny that my words were hurtful and they stick around. Maybe in those moments I became a villain to my children. Maybe they will have that burned in their mind and will remind me how much it hurt them when they are adults in counseling walking through their own father wounds.

For so long I have been trying to find a salve for my own daddy issues that I saw the villain in myself. I’m the bad guy in the story too. There are hurtful things I can’t erase and painful words that I can’t take back. Maybe my children one day will also say:

“Maybe I’m just a waste of time...”

“Clearly I’m not worth a whole lot to be listened to…”

“Dad thinks I’m annoying…”

It breaks my heart to think that a simple hurtful statement out of frustration or exhaustion could be translated into such formulating identity statements. I would never intentionally hurt my children. But unintentional words are like daggers thrown without direction.

So here I am. Villain in moment three. Not so evil, not so great, not so obvious, but a villain just the same. I’ve become an embodiment of my father’s villainy causing the same trauma to my own children; that’s the reveal that hurts the most. It sneaks up on you without warning. We can be so guarded and hellbent to be the opposite of the pain we’ve received in our past that we forget we are made, born, and bred to function just like our parents. Sometimes it feels we are just biological copies destined to make similar mistakes. When you work so hard to not be anything resembling your father and look in the mirror to realize you are just like him, it’s like a reflection ad nauseam. We are running away from being like our fathers, denying cosmic and biological factors that mold us into carbon copies of them. I also felt a deep desire to never emulate my fathers failures, to be something better, but it really was me misguiding my pain towards a stance of victimization and lack of understanding my fathers own origin story.

What if told you that my father had alcoholic parents who were abusive to each other and I’m to my father as well? What if I told you that my father slept out in the hayfield at night just to get away from the yelling and screaming between his parents? What if my father tried his best to be everything his parents couldn’t be? What if the villian of my story was the victim of his own and was subjected to even greater villainy than I?

If we are all being honest with ourselves, we’ve all been victims, and we have all been villains. But victims hardly ever admit to being villains. I think my father struggled so deeply with the thought of acting just like his parents, and wanted nothing more than to be everything other than. But that’s the thing about generational trauma; it goes much deeper than the immediate inflictor and must be viewed at the source. I choose to do the deep inner work and view myself through an objective lens, and the image I found was a lot of similarities in my choices and actions, even my inner thoughts and beliefs. I’ve had many people tell me “you look and act just like your dad” and for the longest time I wanted anything other than to be a reflection of my dad’s image. However, the thing about an image is that is, by nature, different than the original. Your destiny can look entirely different than your father’s image and you can cast your image in a new way.

Being villainous is not always intentional. Sometimes it’s just a culmination of bad choices that manifest in ways we didn’t expect. Spotting a villain in someone else’s story can be easily distinguishable, but our villain tends to hide in the blindspot in our own reflection. Villains are often victims from past villainy and that realization is key to moving away from that role and showing the heroic side our friends and family need to see.

Here are a few key takeaways from my sob-story that may help you understand your own:

• A reflection is not the actual image. A copy is not the original. You can make the choice to be different and make better choices.

• A villain in your story may just be a moment or moments of error in judgment.

• Do not hold so dearly to being a victim. It’s hurting you from healing and moving past your pain.

• You are not doomed to be a villain. Everyday is a new chance to be a reflection we want to show.

Take time to understand who your villain is and how it has impacted the people around you. There may be people you need to ask forgiveness from. There may be relationships that can be restored and can grow again. Reconciliation may not be a tangible option for you and that’s ok. But if you know how your villany functions, you can prevent unintentional hurts to your most significant people.