My cuts say just how much I despise myself. I can’t stand to look at myself in the mirror. I see a monster. A fragment and shadow of a person I used to be. Was I ever alive? I definitely don’t feel alive. I constantly need something to remind me that I’m alive.
I don’t know why my heart is still beating. It should have stopped a long time ago. I just keep postponing the inevitable. I will die anyway. We all will. So, why don’t I just end it now? I want it to end now. End it now before it gets broken and hurt even more.
It aches in hunger, in pain…
I’m starting to hate breathing. I used to love taking in a deep breath. I used to feel alive. Now, I don’t even feel human. I hate that to only feel alive, I have to physically hurt myself. I have to cut myself to feel alive. I have to make myself bleed to feel alive. Every single day.
I have no more fight left in me. This is all I am willing to give. All I can give. I don’t have the strength to go on. I’m hanging by a thread.
I will reach a point where not even cutting will make me feel something. There will come a point where this void and emptiness I feel inside will all be what defines me. I’m nothing but an empty shell.
15 comments
Hi. I think we’re both going through a similar experience. I feel like i’ve lost parts of myself over the years to the point where I’m not really sure who I am anymore, and I feel hollow. I’ve managed to stop cutting but I totally get why it seems helpful to you.
I can’t really say anything to help you, since I can’t even help myself. For me, I think I need to try and stop hating myself before I can get better. I always think obsessively about stuff I don’t like about myself, but I’m beginning to realize you can’t loathe yourself and want to improve at the same time.
I hope your situation improves. From what you’ve written, I don’t think your a monster, or an empty person. You feel deeply, express your feelings very clearly, and you’ve made me feel less alone. A truly broken person could not do that.
Heathclifff…
Thank you for your kind words. For some strange reason, it’s comforting to know I’m not alone. To know someone out there understands what I’m going through. Sometimes that’s all I need to hear. That someone understands what I’m going through.
You have made me feel less alone today as well. Thank you.
You’re in the medical field, you’re helping people. I admire that and you certainly shouldn’t hate yourself.
Regardless of what you do, hating yourself is probably a pretty bad idea.
Take care 🙂
Maybe hug yourself for a change.
A hug for myself. That’s exactly what I need. I need to be in touch with myself again. I’ve lost that. I need to re-establish a relationship with myself again. Love myself again. Bring myself back to life. How I’ll do that? No freakin’ idea.
Thank you Muspelhem.
I’ve been mulling this over myself for ages.
The paradox for me is that I need other people, but I also need to protect myself. And I need to take the future into account, but I also need to live in the present.
I’ve realised that a major barrier to my well-being is that I’ve vacillated between being so eager to please that I put others before me and then being so exhausted, lonely and misanthropic from the experience that I isolated myself completely. I think the solution lies in the Dr Seuss quote: “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.” In other words, BE social, BUT be yourself.
My second problem is tied to the first: I’ve been alternately ascetic/puritan/hard/ on myself because I wanted to improve myself to win approval from others. Then when I got sick of that (and it didn’t work), I would binge like mad to numb my loneliness and depression, with the obvious consequences of unbridled hedonism on my health and self-confidence. In other words, sometimes I would ignore my present pain for future gain. Then when the pain got too much, I would ignore my future pain for my present pleasure.
Neither of these approaches work. I discovered that much as I love other people and want to be accepted by them, I need to stop living to win their approval. I need to enjoy the present because it’s good for me, AND prepare for the future in a way that is good for me.
An addendum:
At first I tried positive affirmations. I would tell myself daily that I loved myself, repeat it over and over, every day.
After a while I started to suspect that just saying something repeatedly wouldn’t make me believe it was true.
What was needed was PRACTISE: Being good and kind to myself in practise.
I think that may be a place to start for you.
If you don’t mind me asking: Why do u only feel alive when you cut yourself?
Why do u feel that you are only an empty shell? Why not fill that empty shell?
Fill it with what? I can never love anyone, other than my own family. But I feel like I’m programmed to care about them anyway because they are my family. No one would ever want to be with someone as fucked up as me.
I feel so numb, so empty, so emotionless and so out of this world, that pain is the only thing that makes me feel alive. Pain is the only thing that makes me feel human. Reminds me that I can still feel. That I’m still of this world.
Is exercise an option? It hurts, it makes you aware off every single muscle that will keep hurting for ever after just a few minutes of lifting, it may give you a good chemical reward and it will make you more visually attractive (Not that it matters)
And time is not an excuse!
So? Is it?
I honestly doubt you’re right. I think people would enjoy being with you. It’s not about them as much as about yourself: you feel insecure and you have a hard time accepting yourself. But bear in mind that other people might see something completely different in you. Stuff that you don’t even notice.
Unfortunately, time is an excuse. Exercise used to work. I’m too busy with school lately, I don’t have the time, except weekends, if I don’t have assignments and studying. If I get back into it, it might just still work. I’ll need to get my priorities in check.
Thanks for the suggestion MP.
I wouldn’t do this for the world, but if you ever wanna try: https://youtu.be/X1TuhAn6C-g
@muspelhem…. People are interested in me as long as they see the person I pretend to be. I get tired of pretending. When I reveal the real me, when the happy person mask falls off, they back away.
So, it’s either I pretend to be someone I’m not so people stick around, or I just be me and remain alone. I choose to be me. I’m tired of pretending. I’ve been pretending most of my life. I can’t anymore.
Example would be… I told a close friend I’m an atheist and bisexual. Immediately, she said she was backing away because I might rub off on her. Called me a devil child. This happened about 2 weeks ago. Made me feel like crap. I will never be accepted for who I am. I have to pretend so I can fit in, and I’m not interested in that. I’d rather be alone and empty the rest of my life, than pretend to be happy when I’m not.
It’s great that you’ve decided to be true to yourself.
I believe in honesty, simply because if you imagine humanity as a communication network, what f***s it up? Yes, that’s right, disturbances in the signal. Which is exactly what dishonesty is. So for humanity as a whole, honesty should work best. That’s my belief, at least.
And what happened wasn’t that a close friend left you. What happened was that a person you’ve been spending a lot of time with found out who you really are and rejected you. So not a close friend. It’s a pretty sucky realisation, but I’ve been having it recently with some of my friends.
I’m not saying you can just spring your most controversial secrets on people out of the blue and expect them to react mega well. But if someone is your friend, they should stick by you and come to terms with who you are, and preferably be crazy about it.<
Everything I've heard about loneliness pushes this point: you can be lonely with other people. The deciding factor is whether you feel like you belong, not just the physical proximity to other people. Otherwise there would be no lonely people in big cities. And we all know that isn't the case.
So go for it! Be polarizing. Be yourself. Be honest. Accept that the wrong people will reject you, and the right ones will embrace you.
Hugs
I was rejected. I didn’t think of it that way. Hmm…
I never feel like I belong. I prefer being alone than being around people I don’t fit in with. It sucks even worse when you are in the company of others and still feel alone. So, I get what you mean.
I’m accepting myself for who I am.
Thanks and hugs right back at you.