Dearly Beloved:
We are gathered here today to mourn the passing of someone very dear to me: Me. Oh, I know I am still alive, so obviously, I am not mourning the actual physical passing of me, as fascinating as that may be. No, I am mourning the passing of the girl/woman I used to be–the one who I am trying to no longer be.
For decades, I hated that girl/woman. I wanted her to die. If I had the guts, I would have killed her and her whiny, mopey, puling ass. I couldn’t stand being inside her head as she brooded about how much her life sucked for hours on end.
I hated that she was weak and indecisive and just so gumdropit* spineless. She was a complete mess, and she couldn’t do anything right. I hated her with every fiber of my being. I wanted nothing to do with her–which was problematic, of course, because she was me. As hard as I ran, as much as I numbed out, as much as I tried to get away from her–I couldn’t.
That depressed me even more.
Hate. it’s an ugly word, but it’s apropos in this situation. I can’t tell you how much I raged against her, how much I tore her down and shredded her into tiny bits. The demons in my head didn’t have to egg me on because I was a willing participant in her destruction. I berated her physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. She couldn’t do anything right, and oh, how I hounded her with that truth every Damascus Fig moment of her existence.
Let me be brutally honest: There was a time when I didn’t like a single thing about myself besides my intelligence. I hated my face, my body, my indecisiveness, my low self-esteem, my freakishness, my skittishness, and everything in between. I thought I was the biggest piece of shiitake on earth, and I didn’t think I deserved to live.
I abused myself physically in many ways because I just couldn’t express my disdain for myself deeply enough with mere thoughts and words. Horrifying? Yes, in retrospect. At the time, I thought it only what I deserved.