Garbage

I spend a large majority of my time on earth calling myself a variety of hideous names. I hadn’t realized how prominent this was until recently. I was at work, and I was having a bad day. I thanked everyone who was working with me that day for dealing with me even though I was being, as I put it then, “a piece of garbage”.

After repeating that I was a piece of garbage three or four times, one coworker asked, “Why do you think you’re a piece of garbage?”

I can’t remember my answer. To be honest, it doesn’t really matter what I answered anyway because in that moment I realized that everyone in the room, everyone who had listened to me call myself a piece of garbage probably thought I was the saddest person they’d ever seen in their life.

I didn’t always suffer from this lack of self-esteem. Realistically speaking, two or three years ago I wouldn’t have dreamt of calling myself something so mean. Because that’s what it is, mean.

I have a great ability to be kind to the worst people. I was nice to my first boyfriend, even after he was abusive, threatened to kill my friends, said I ruined his life and pretended he was committing suicide over the phone. I was never mean to my mother, though for years she was emotionally abusive and a practical drunk. I was kind to another boyfriend for whatever length of time he spent cheating on me with every person in this city and manipulating me to the point of losing grip with reality. I am still nice to a coworker who spends their entire workday trying to manipulate me into doing bad work, feeling like I don’t belong and generally…feel like garbage.

Please don’t misunderstand me; I am happy to be this way. I would much rather be kind to the people who can’t be kind to me than the opposite. Uplifting people is more important than satisfying my pride.

What I can’t understand is why exactly I can surmount those obstacles, be empathetic and understanding in my dealings with these arguably horrible people in my life…and yet I react to myself and my own failures and thoughts as though I am…well, a piece of garbage.

In my last entry, I laid out some “resolutions” I wanted to keep this year. The most important resolution I decided to make was undoubtedly to be kinder and more caring toward myself. How can I be kinder to myself when I have never done it before? I am not familiar with the logistics of treating oneself with respect and dignity. I have very few close examples of this to use as blueprints.

Maybe the best thing I can do is try every day to stop toxic thoughts like “I am a piece of garbage” or “I am broken” or “I am the worst” to make their way into my brain. Put them in perspective. Reel in the self-hatred.

Someone once told me that the words you use against yourself hold more power than any other person’s, enemy or friend. I guess I should learn to be my own friend. Whatever that means.