Revisionists

Recently someone made casual mention of an event from a long time ago that left me literally speechless. Yeah. Literally speechless. And frankly, my brow still hasn’t un-furrowed so baffled am I by what she said. I don’t claim to have a perfect memory, but her “recollection” was a perfect example of revisionism.

Yeah, I know y’all generally associate revisionists with historical whatnots, but my life has history – and plenty of it I might add, so I will. I’ve puzzled over this phenomenon as it relates to people’s own lives for days now. I’d always thought of our recollections as what we thought we heard or saw – like the adage, “her side, his side, and the truth.” It never really occurred to me that for some people it’s really so much more. Pretty sure it goes like this:

Enter random situation here.

Post-situation, mulling occurs.
The first time, you recollect the situation as it actually happened.
Uh oh. You don’t come off very attractive/smart/pleasant? Well, there’s only one thing to do...

Think about the situation again.
Ah, that’s better. You didn’t *actually* or *intentionally* use that tone/utter those words/tell that lie, so that bit doesn’t count.

Whew!
Okay, let’s step through this again.
The other person involved is *obviously* at fault, not you, because of x, y, z.

Better. Just one more re-enactment in your head.
This is the best part from my outsider’s perspective because it often includes completely new dialogue and sometimes even new actors.

[Sidebar: I was screwed by one of these about a year ago. As the story goes, I was at a local “establishment” when something cruel was said about someone who was then completely crushed... and really pissed. Yeah, inasmuch as that sounds like me, not only was I not there that night – or that week – I wasn’t even in the time zone. I’d become a replacement actor for the person who repeated the story – the actual Mean Girl. MG panicked on replay. The hilarity here is that she was so busy trying to shine a new light on her involvement when she created the “new real” story in her head, she forgot to consider who might alibi out when the shit hit the fan.]

I get that sometimes we need to put a lighter, brighter spin on real life for the sake of our audience. I’ve “revised” bits of my life because there are a few stories no one needs to hear in their entirety. But I’ve never done it to avoid owning my behavior, to make myself seem like a better person than I am, to appear the “hero,” or to screw someone else. And blatantly changing history and retelling it to people who know the truth? She’s some kind of crazy.

Revisionists stick by their story no matter what. I gotta admit, the fact that they believe their own crap and have the balls to present it as truth, freaks me out. Not like clowns at children’s parties, but still… *shudder*