This is not a good subject to discuss. This is where I could go on forever. I mean, I could list item after item both big and small. I’ll do my best to keep this short and concise. I’m unsure if I’m supposed to only list one item or all, something is singular, so I will write this post about the single biggest thing I hate about myself.

The inability to love myself.

It’s not that I hate myself, it’s not that I ruin my life. It is however a deep seething inability to love myself that make me constantly trip over my own good intentions.

I have wants, and needs. I want to lose weight, I hate the way I look. But I constantly manipulate myself into destroying the good work I do. I lost 50 pounds so I felt I was entitled to… stray from my diet. I never turned back to my narrow path and soon the 50 pounds with an additional 10 had fixated themselves all over my body.

I do that constantly. Try to fix what depresses me, and then I think but I deserve…and I end up destroying my good efforts.

I quit drinking and wasn’t even longing for a glass of wine, so I went out and had one with dinner, which was followed by another the night after. Soon enough I was back to my old alcoholic ways. Or I stayed away from sugar for a year and never really longed for it but everyone was praising it so it must be good, or maybe that cake tastes better, or everyone else is eating it…

Or what about the time I smoked so much pot I hardly ever left the house?

I don’t do mediocre. If I get hooked I decide to take it to extremes.

If something is going well, I decide to destroy it. I don’t mentally decide, lets destroy this good thing, I just think my efforts have entitled me to deviate from the plan. Each time I know the cost and what the result will be. Yet I convince myself this time will be different and I deviate.

Somehow I feel, this is because of my inability to truly love myself. If I truly loved myself I’d let me be happy, let me enjoy my successes and stop ruining things for myself.

This is something I need to work at, I just don’t know where to start. Once I’m happy again something inside me will say “you deserve” and when my other self try to keep me on the narrow path the evil me will heckle and say What are you afraid of, you’re strong now. You can do this and still continue on your narrow path. But I never can.

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I already know I’m an alcoholic. Yet I fear to say it out loud. I don’t want to admit, because you will deprive me of the one thing I feel I need the most. Yet it is killing me, and I know it.

I can see that you see it, even when I try to disguise it. My gift and my curse have always been that I can see what you think, even if it’s about me or about another. I can see when you lust, I can see when you feel sorrow and I can see when you see something that I lie about. I see it, but you don’t call on it. So I lie some more.

Remember when I made a fuss about what seemed like nothing. My friend was over, you behaved like a perfect gentleman, and I fussed. Cause I could see. Her want, your want. Yet neither of you made the other aware. But I could see. It  has always been my gift and my curse.

When I was younger I could tell who wanted me, who wanted to say something, who felt disgust. I could always tell. It never bothered me. Boyfriends ago, it never bothered me.

I can tell when you see me. I can tell when you don’t. I can tell when you hide from me, and I can tell when you don’t even try. I can read you. I can read you better than anyone ever has, no matter how close to you. It hurts me. It makes me love you. It pains me. It makes me a drunk, it makes me want to change.

I don’t think I can until I can make you understand, just how deep in the shit I am. I am in the shit over nothing. And nothings going to change.

I’m an alcoholic.

This entry was originally posted at Mushroom Print.

The other day, I was walking down the street, clearly stressed out because I was one ingredient short for my mom’s birthday present. You saw me with your friends and felt the need to comment about me:

Is that a man or a woman? I can’t tell.

An obvious lie, since I have breasts bigger than most breastfeeding mothers. But you felt the need to shoot it my way anyway.

I don’t know if it was because I was stressed and hadn’t showered or because I was in slacks and obviously hadn’t fixed myself up. Maybe it was the sweatshirt I was wearing, supporting a football team you hated. I don’t know.

Your friends started laughing. Someone said right or exactly or I agree.

Had you been 15, I wouldn’t have been surprised, but you were well over 20. I’d say either pushing 30 or way past it already.

So thank you mystery man for feeling you had the right to take your crappy life out on me. Thank you for feeling the need to push me down because I didn’t live up to the standards you felt women should meet.

Or maybe you pushed me down so that you could push yourself higher?

Here’s a mushroom print for you old man, because you obviously haven’t left high school and you felt the need to drag me back there, even if for just one day.

I gained a lot of weight the past year. Weight I worked hard to shed off. But as we all know gaining is easier than losing, and I definitely turned a blind eye towards the gain until it had completely taken over.

My reasoning was the birth control pill. I started taking it (again) last summer when I met my boyfriend. The pill was driving me crazy. I was always hungry for more, no matter it be food, sweets or alcohol. It was just too hard to stop eating. So I didn’t. And I became angry, and angrier. I couldn’t control my mood swings, and I cried all the time, over nothing.

I went off the pill and found myself another birth control method (IUD) and all of a sudden I became sane again. And I weighed myself, and I wanted to die. I weigh more than I have, ever before. I weigh as much as two people, my length, should weigh. I realize I have a lot of work ahead of me but I am motivated.

My first concern is though, that I don’t want to weigh half of me (121) because the last time I weighed that little I was around 11 years old, just a tad shorter than now, and I never looked fat. I want to weigh around 143. Last time I did, I was gorgeous.

My second concern is, this has to be slow. I don’t want flabby skin, and I need to change my patterns. I have been overweight for the major part of my life, and its my habit. My habit to constantly hate my body. Its a habit I want to break.

I want to be brutally honest here. I would love to show what I look like but I’m afraid. I would love to tell you what I eat but that is boring. I would love to share, but I don’t know how. All I know is that I will do this, one step at a time.

The funny thing? I don’t really like candy. I don’t really drink sodas. I hardly ever eat chips or really fatty food. I do love my wine and my troubles start there if for no other reason than that I get the sweet tooth when I drink. The funny thing is, I eat healthier than most people I know. I just drink too much…

Fear is controlling and paralysing.

Our fears dictate our choices and motions. Every second step is decided before hand by our own ulterior motives, all controlled by fear.

I quit drinking for a month because I feared I was an alcoholic. When it wasn’t that hard to quit, I began drinking again. It is a reward, for having the energy to stay alive. It sounds negative and dangerous but I’m not suicidal, no matter how that sentence is construed. I learned a decade ago that I would never end my life deliberately, it does however not imply that I’m happy enough to stay alive.

I have someone who loves me that I love so much it hurts. I sometimes love myself, sometimes hate myself.

Probably bipolar, I sometimes just don’t have the energy to be all that I can be. Other days I think it will suffice if I’d work as a waitress for the rest of my life, happy just being me (like Phoebe in Friends), but I know it wont. I am too smart, with too much to offer and just not enough energy to give. Anything.

We are our own worse enemies and its when we look beyond our own view of ourselves, look through other peoples eyes, that we shine. I’m trying my hardest to just shine.

I’ve gone over a week without alcohol. I would be lying if I said I didn’t think about it, but it was easier than expected. Maybe all I needed was to decide. Really decide to give it up. Although I keep thinking, in a month I’ll be able to have a glass of wine. Just that one glass.

I read somewhere that if you can stop at one glass, what’s the point of having that one? I thought it was a stupid question, didn’t they drink wine because they loved the taste? Did they only drink to get the alcohol effect of it? I never really got that part anymore, the reaction. Mostly due to my built up resistance to alcohol but also due to my weight. Massive abundance of fat will do that.

I gave it all up. Sugars, actually all carbs, and then alcohol. I’m only on the first week but I’ve been here before, that’s why I know the headache is a side effect. A horrible side effect because I never get headache usually. The constant thirst is another. Sure I’d get thirsty when I was consuming alcohol but that was because I hardly ever drank any water. Now I’m drinking gallon after gallon and I’m never satisfied. I don’t have diabetes. I already checked.

I don’t want to walk through life hating my body anymore. I don’t want to be constantly tired and upset. I need to remember that when the cravings kick in. Remember that I want more out of life than food and alcohol. I want to be able to feel good about myself.