[Regarding a screenshot, with text about negative self image and apologizing for existing]
I’m in a much much better place mentally than I ever have been before, but these kinds of behavior, and the insecurity, anxiety, and low-self-worth that drive them, have been with me since middle school, and probably always will be. It is still a struggle, even at the happiest moments of my life, to resist the urge to self-deprecate, to undervalue myself and my needs and wants as a defense mechanism against threats to ego that largely exist only in my mind. A favorite writer of mine jokes “you can’t shoot me where it hurts if I shoot myself there first, your bullet will just pass right through” and I wonder how much of my life I’ve spent trying to become bulletproof by making swiss cheese of myself. One of the most important, and difficult, challenges I’ve ever faced has been having to come to terms with the fact that my self-loathing was, and is, ultimately just a shortcut. Letting me get to the end of whatever conversation or thought or process that might require me to change or engage in actual self examination, without any of the messy stuff in the middle that actually requires love or patience or work. After all, It’s much easier to just say, “haha yeah sorry I’m just a dumbass, ignore me!” than it is to actually try to meet with my emotions and figure out why I am so ashamed of being myself.
I feel the need to say again, after all that, that I’ve literally never been happier. My life is filled to brimming with love and loved ones, the time and security to engage with my own mind and find what makes me happy, and the freedom to pursue it. It’s still a struggle though, always, and I have at times wondered it these behaviors and thoughts have worn grooves in my mind that will always be there, if my stream of consciousness, the occasional flood of thought, will always tend to flow in those familiar (and exhausting and unhelpful) ways. But, maybe the rest of me has evened out and my mind is not quite so turbulent anymore, or maybe those old worn grooves are getting filled in with all that love pouring into my life (did I just equate love to sediment? Man this metaphor is getting messy). In either case, I find that while it is still a struggle to resist my negative-self-talk/negative-self-thought, it isn’t as bad as it used to be, and I’ve gotten better at grappling with it anyhow.
I originally shared this because I thought it really captured the inescapable, painful spiral of being in hate with yourself. I’m so glad that things like these get written and shared online, even if they hurt.