Big B, little b

I can be a real Bitch. It’s not a secret.  Anyone in my family could tell you: I am capable of moments of true ugliness.

I’m not proud of it, but it’s there.

Don’t get me wrong – I am not ashamed of having strong opinions, and I’m not afraid to assert those opinions.  I like that about me. What I don’t like is that, if I become excessively angry, overtired, or hurt, I will sometimes let go of the things I like about myself and embrace the ugly and aim pointed, stabby words at the softest places of my imagined opponent’s emotional anatomy.

That's ... not okay.

I don’t like it because I think that when I’m verbally going for someone’s throat it is because I have lost my sense of who I am and what I believe in. I’ve become overwrought and upset, and so, feeling destabilized, try to make the person who has knocked me off my base bleed so that they are as off balance as I am. I understand that it’s a defense mechanism – a default to protect myself – but I don’t love it.

I don’t have these moments very often. I used to have them more, but then, I used to be more insecure (as opposed to now, when I’m … less insecure) and insecurity is the BFF of Bitchiness. I also recognize that the moment I go there, I lose. No one is listening to me if I’m just trying to maim them verbally, and no one is going to listen to anything I have to say if they’re waiting for the blow.

I want to say again that I differentiate being a Bitch with being a bitch.  Being a Big B Bitch is not the same thing as being honest, truthful, and sticking to your guns. It’s interesting, though, how often a woman who has strong opinions, is intelligent, and who appreciates her own power becomes a little b bitch when spoken about, as though those things are all negative and derogatory when … and this is important … a woman possesses those qualities. A man with strong opinions, intelligence, and with an appreciation of his worth is a LEADER. A woman …

… well, you know. Little b.

The thing that connects the little b and the Big B is insecurity. When I’m a little b, it’s because of someone else’s insecurities. When I’m a Big B, it’s because of mine. I can't let being called a bitch turn me into a Bitch. I can’t control the insecurity of other people, but I do need to work on mine.

I don’t care about being a bitch.

But I hate it when I catch myself being a Bitch.