I should stop tearing myself apart over this, I would like to be immune from it, but it feels as though I need to understand it so I can get it out of me. There is a fine line between thinking too much and thinking enough, I know. I don’t want to nurse resentment the way the Cajuns do. But I do want to understand the panic attack, or whatever it was, I had, and how to avoid it. I want to be able to walk along like a dignified person, and live as an adult. I don’t want to have to constantly be shielding myself from blows and apologizing for having hurt the Cajuns.
I had a panic attack about Cajuns. One new policy could be just to know in how much pain I am, know I cannot happily discuss Cajun tourism, and know to withdraw from these conversations as soon as they start or before they do.
So how, exactly, did I hurt that Cajun? 1/ I was more competent as an academic than that department chair, and I expected a kind of competence he didn’t have (I’d had many chairs by that point, and none had been flat-out incompetent like that). I didn’t understand that my expectations were intimidating. 2/ The instructor ladies had hoped that nobody would be hired and they would be allowed to do my job. 3/ I kept being harassed/obstructed by all three of these people. 4/ I was told it was my job to mollify them. 5/ I knew I had to fit in somehow, so I tried my best to diminish myself, so I would not be as scary to them and they might not kill me.
How do I get this experience out of myself? Well, have I hurt the Cajuns? 1/ I exist. 2/ I have a good Ph.D. 3/ I speak French. 4/ I don’t lie, cheat, steal, or curry favor. 5/ I stand up for others. 6/ I have power and am respected because of all of the aforementioned characteristics. 7/ I stand against corruption and nepotism. 8/ I believe in workers’ rights, and I don’t mean thugs’ rights to abuse others in compensation for what their masters have done to them. 9/ I am in touch with people who are Cajuns and people who aren’t.
There are probably more things. But I need to start being proud of these characteristics again instead of apologizing for them. NOTICE, too, how much of the harassment I’ve put up with seems to have had to do with jealousy. (I never expect people to be jealous of me because I’ve been ashamed of myself since early childhood, but people are, and I am slow to see it.) And I’ve internalized so many accusations. No amount of railing against those who made them will help. It is I who have to stop believing them. I’m not sure how, but the mantra can begin with the nine points above and with the realization that my hurting myself does not benefit anyone worthwhile.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
In other words, what do YOU do to de-internalize accusations and abuse you have internalized? Some of the main things I have internalized are that I hurt my mother by existing and by being another person, and that I hurt the Cajuns by having a good Ph.D. and being here to work in an honest way. In the case of my mother, I tried to earn her respect and to show her love, so that her pain would lessen, even though I couldn’t really stop it unless I rescinded my existence altogether, an act it was too late for because even if I died, I would still have existed and thus disturbed the mirrors. In the case of the Cajuns, I tried to diminish myself as much as possible so as to be less threatening, and to demonstrate I meant no harm by giving them as much as I could, ceding as much as I could afford and more, and apologizing as profusely as I could, while still remaining marginally alive. In the end, these solutions just damaged me, and did them no good, either. I don’t know what year it was I finally stood up to my mother, saying no, my college degree had not been a waste. It was at Christmas, though. This Christmas I am standing up to abuse I’ve internalized from the Cajuns. What I have to say to them is, I’ve given them the expertise they asked for, I’ve created the opportunities they wanted, and they’ve kicked me in the teeth. The rest of my things are for me now, I have nothing left to offer you, is what I have to say, perhaps. I am a person, I want to say. I deserve things as much as they do, I want to say.
More briefly I could say yes, I really am oppressing you, and you really are inferior. You can begin to earn my respect when you stop lying and stealing. Come and see me next year with your report.