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Posted by on 2014/10/25 under Uncategorized

I always told myself that I was just a really f***ed-up person. I think it helped me handle my mistakes, to just add them to the mass of f***ed-upness that was my life. “It makes sense that I just embarrassed myself in front of my class because I’m a f***up.” It made me feel worthless, but it also made my life make sense.

The cycle started when I was young, too young to know any better. What my parents told me was wrong with me stuck in my sensitive little heart and at some point I just learned to accept that that was who I was. Someone whose instincts and desires were fundamentally wrong and who had to hide herself from the world in order to be tolerated.

Even now I sometimes get mad about how f***ed-up I am. I blame my parents and of course myself. I retreat into whatever zone of solitary quasi-comfort I can create and tune out my life to the TV. But the seemingly unfortunate thing is, that can never be a permanent solution. You always have to come back to yourself. No matter how much you hate yourself, you still exist. You still have to be you. You still have to live your life.

One day I realized that all I wanted was to curl up into a ball so tightly that no one could see me, that I’d suddenly just pop out of existence and never have to disappoint or frustrate or hurt anyone again. The fact that I felt this so strongly was cognitively very weird. From a purely rational standpoint I knew I had no need or desire to feel like this.

Thankfully I know this not just rationally anymore.

I wish you could see me in person. Whenever I tell people about my problems they ask, “why would you ever be insecure??” I “won the genetic lottery,” to reuse a tired phrase. I am pretty, I am smart, I am healthy, my family has money…. Yet of course none of these things matter when you feel worthless.

And actually the key, I’ve found, to being happy is realizing that they don’t matter at all. I budget my money tightly. I forego makeup and walk away from those who care too much about my looks. I realize that my health could be gone tomorrow, and that that’s okay. I still have problems with valuing my intelligence too much–it can prevent me from seeing when I’m being an idiot–but I’m coming closer to accepting what the great book says:

“The Lord knows the thoughts of man, that they are a mere breath.”

The real question is, when you don’t find your worth in any of those things, what do you find it in? Job success? Being a good person?

I’ve found my worth in love.

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