every story needs a villain

Disney taught us how to recognize a villain long before we learned how to recognize a person.

Cruella wanted a coat made of Dalmatian puppies. Scar murdered his brother for the throne. Ursula stole Ariel’s voice. Maleficent cursed a baby.

Every story gives us someone to blame.

Stories are simpler that way. Someone to fear. Someone the audience never has to understand.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what happens when that story leaves the movie theater.

Because in real life, we all end up as characters in someone else’s book.

Sometimes we’re the hero.

Sometimes we’re the sidekick.

And sometimes, despite our best efforts, we’re cast as the villain.

Looking back at my recent writing, I can see someone desperately trying to be understood. For a long time, I believed that if I could just explain myself clearly enough, apologize sincerely enough or become lovable enough, I’d eventually earn a redemption arc. The misunderstanding would be resolved. The audience would finally see the whole story.

Looking back now, I realize I wasn’t really searching for understanding.

I was searching for proof that I wasn’t the problem.

I’ve spent years examining my childhood, and only recently have I realized that I’m no longer sure what was real. Not in the sense that I was delusional or incapable of understanding reality, but in how I interpreted it. I got in trouble a lot. Over time, I stopped asking whether I’d made a mistake and simply decided that I was the mistake. I labeled myself the bad kid because that’s the role I believed I had been given.

I didn’t realize how deeply that story had become ingrained until recently.

Then I started asking myself different questions.

Why do I carry so much shame? Why does guilt seem to follow me everywhere? Why is my first instinct to assume that everything is my fault?

For years, I treated those feelings as evidence.

I spent so much of my life trying to determine whether I really was the villain. If enough people believed I was selfish, difficult, dramatic or ungrateful...maybe they were right. I became my own prosecutor, searching for evidence against myself.

The truth is, I’ve hurt people. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve said things I wish I could take back. But I’ve also apologized, taken accountability and tried to grow. Yet even as I write those words, I can hear the silent objections of people who would disagree. Part of me still wants to believe them.

But I don’t think that’s my authentic voice.

I think it’s the inner critic I was taught to trust long before I learned to trust myself.

For so long, I just wanted to be good. I wanted to be liked. Approved of. Chosen. I think one of our greatest fears is being alone, and we’ll do almost anything to avoid it. Some people stay in relationships that no longer fit. Some build lives they never really wanted. I became a mirrorball, constantly reshaping myself into whatever I thought the person in front of me wanted, hoping that if I reflected them well enough, they might never leave.

I think what I finally realized is that real life doesn’t always guarantee redemption.

For years, I believed that if I could become a little kinder, a little quieter, a little more understanding, eventually someone would look at me and say, “I was wrong about you.”

But that’s not how every story ends.

You spend years trying to become green because that’s what they said they loved. You bend. You shrink. You ignore your own needs. You become someone you barely recognize. Then one day, they decide their favorite color is purple.

That’s the problem with living for someone else’s approval. You can lose yourself trying to meet standards that were never meant to stay the same.

Sometimes, the author has already decided who you are.

And I’ve realized something surprisingly peaceful.

I’m becoming okay with being the villain in other people’s stories.

Although, I’m not 100% there yet. Probably a solid 75%.

After years of masking, performing and trying to fit an impossible mold, you don’t unlearn that overnight. It takes time. It takes work. It takes a lot of help.

For most of my life, I thought strength meant handling everything alone.

This time, I couldn’t.

For the first time in my life, I reached out for help because I genuinely couldn’t carry it by myself. And something unexpected happened. My people showed up.

I’ve been in therapy for eleven years.

After almost every breakthrough, I thought, This is it. This is when my story finally begins. This is when my life turns around. This is when I become empowered.

Life had other plans.

But I’ve realized something important.

Every time I was knocked down, I never went back to zero.

I carried something forward.

This time feels different.

There’s a line in the sand that I can’t uncross, even if going back might be more familiar. My writing has been leading me here for years. Maybe my spirit has too.

Years after teaching us who the villains were, Disney did something interesting.

It started asking what happened before they became the villain.

Maleficent didn’t stop being the woman who cursed Aurora. But we also learned she watched over her. Protected her. Loved her. The story became more complicated because she became more human.

Maybe that’s the point.

If you take the time to really know someone, you’ll eventually find their heart. Not because they become different, but because your understanding of them does.

For years, I believed that peace would come when I finally convinced everyone that they had misunderstood me.

Now I think peace comes from accepting that some people will never change the story they’ve written about you.

And that’s okay.

I can’t choose the role I play in someone else’s story.

But for the first time in my life, I finally get to decide who I am in my own