But I Don’t Like Her

Beating me up is the easiest thing ever. I’ve been practicing being unbelievably mean to myself since I  was a child. The default pathway has long been one of deep disdain.

This is so incredibly challenging to counteract.

It’s especially difficult when people are so forthcoming with their opinions and not so focused on how their words might impact others. Others who are sensitive and insecure.

Me.

Others being me.

I’m supposed to be setting boundaries. I set them and then I panic and concede. I’m supposed to be treating myself with kindness.

Didn’t I just talk about how I was waiting to be saved and protected and it was a complete and utter waste of a huge chunk of my life?

Yes.

No saviours.

But how am I supposed to protect myself, my inner child, when I’m not really a fan.

You can’t say unkind things about someone for thirty years, point out their flaws, magnify their mistakes and watch over every aspect of their existence with a critical eye, and still see them as a virtuous person that anyone would want around.

These labels I have been using on myself aren’t just a narrative. These labels became my self identity.

These focal points of negativity are the foundation of how I see myself.

That’s why when someone tells me their experience with me is a negative one I am not surprised by it. I do not expect anyone to have a good time.

Over emotional, messy, loud, too much, too big, failure, loser, stupid, fat, too masculine, not a good mother, not a good friend, scared all the time and always looking for a cheat sheet on how to be less like me.

I am easy to forget, easy to move on from, easy to never look back at.

And that last part will be the crux of what I believe I am, probably, because no matter what happens to individual relationships life goes on.

I have ample evidence to counter the rest of what I said up there. I have managed to let go of my disdain for my physical body most days as a direct result of nearly dying from holes in my intestines. I lay in that hospital bed with an insanely high fever on my 40th birthday and recalled all the years I spent hating a body that was perfectly functional.

The emotional overhaul isn’t quite that way. Even though I have similarly rolled around in my sorrow, hating myself and my brain for the ways in which I lack while turning a blind eye completely to all the blessings I also have… It doesn’t seem to make me kinder.

I’m well aware I wouldn’t treat others like I treat myself through my internal monologue. I’m well aware berating myself won’t bring me towards being better at anything. If it was going to work, it would have by now.

I saw a video the other day that was reposted by one of the kids. It was an adolescent girl of the Christian persuasion talking about meeting God in the afterlife.

She said, in effect, imagine getting there and God asking you why you didn’t use any of the gifts that were chosen for you. Imagine having to say that you really just wanted to be like that tiktoker or YouTuber you liked, so you wasted the time you had on being something you aren’t. Someone you weren’t meant to be.

I know it’s my job to protect me. As painful as that is, it means I have to stop giving my time and energy to people who hurt me when it suits them. I know I’m the knight I seek, okay.

The thing of it is… don’t want to protect her.

I don’t really like her.