In the words of me, on the leather couch in front of my new therapist I met for the first time a few weeks ago, “now that I told you all of that, I feel like it’s so little.”
In the words of my therapist, sitting across from me, raising her eyebrows: “You have been dealing with these feelings, with this stress, ever since you were thirteen. You are twenty-six years old now. I don’t think that’s so little.”
In the words of me, “Oh.”
In the words of her, “Imagine fighting with yourself every single day. That’s gotta be exhausting.”
I burst into tears, feeling the weight and the truth of it for the very first time. I had been collecting it, carrying it, feeding it for more than a decade. The more I fought with it, the bigger the thing got. The more I ignored it, the more it ate.
All that self-doubt, that self-loathing–it all came from this voice inside my head that was seemingly born to hate me. It was out to get me every time I felt a slither of any happiness.
I keep myself busy when something bad happens, as if I don’t deserve a break. I laugh the loudest I can only so I don’t have to hear the screams in my head. I don’t really hear screams–it feels more like this immense pressure building up inside, ready to explode and rupture my every cell.
Despite this voice that takes every wrong-doing (from myself or others towards me) as new proof that I am the problem, I never thought I should become a bad person. Not that all bad people are bad because they choose to be; most people are ‘bad’ because they had no other choice, and they’d never had the space to be good. But so many times I thought I could think ugly thoughts, curse other people, do bad things out of spite, because if bad things happened to me even when I was good, there seemed to be no reason to keep being good.
But this brings me to the realisation that no matter what happens to me, I cannot and will not change who I am. In a sense, that is strength. I am not willing to let whatever, whoever happens to me to destroy what kindness I know I am made of. My mother did not give birth to me so my roots would be taken away from me. My mother planted a seed, one that grew within me to blossom, and sure I have my faults, but what I know of myself the best is that I always act with my best intentions.
It takes so much effort to build a life that exists despite the darkness. There’s so much to worry about.
I don’t want to spend every day worried about my job.
I don’t want to spend every day worried about money.
I don’t want to spend every day worried about future worst case scenarios in friendships or relationships.
I don’t want to spend every day scared, wanting my walls high up, wondering whether I’d feel safest if I just let nobody in.
So, I don’t want to spend every day fighting with myself.
Mostly, I want to be kind. And that will mean showing kindness to myself, even when the voice that hates me bullies me relentlessly. Someone has to take care of me. Someone has to stand up for me. Someone has to make sure I know I’m worthy of good things. And if there’s no one else around, the only person left to do that is me. It’s a huge task. It’s the biggest task I’ve had to take on.
But it is a good task.
I’ll lay in bright grass. I’ll read on a blanket, heated up by the sun. I’ll take a stroll on the sidewalk. So many more things to chase. So many more memories to pocket.
So many more mistakes to make. But by the end of it, I should come out of it knowing where to go. Time knows no breaks, I might vanish into thin air, still wishing you the best. But you know where I’ll be.
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