I Shall Wear Midnight
Nov. 15th, 2010 07:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gryphonseggI just finished reading I Shall Wear Midnight today. I have more to say in the future, but right now, all I can do is calm down from the reading experience and share this thing with my circle/list that . . . might explain a few things.
This was a really intense experience for me because I kept going, over and over again, HOLY SHIT I THINK THAT ALL THE TIME. The Cunning Man lives in my brain. There is always a part of me that's always screaming those slurs and insults and imprecations at myself: worthless bitch, filthy, unholy, whore, liar, deceiver, defiler of all that is good, dirty, disgusting, nasty, you/I ruin everything. I do this to myself every day. Every. Damn. Day. Literally every day. I beat myself up over everything I've ever done wrong (both morally wrong-- "I shouldn't have been so selfish"-- and factually wrong--"I didn't know the answer to #12 and I should have known that"), but I also accuse myself of doing/wanting to do/being the kind of person who would did things that I have never done and never want to do, including but not limited to things that I honestly don't believe would be necessarily wrong for someone else but irrationally fear would destroy whatever worth I have if I did them because there is something about me that is intrinsically wrong. Even though I know it doesn't make any sense, there's still a part of me that hangs on to the idea, learned many years ago in childhood, that the same mistake that would be very minor if someone else made it would be unforgivable for me, and that some things that I must never, ever think about doing aren't even mistakes for other people-- and since the thought entered my mind, I'm almost as bad as if I'd gone out and done it, so oops. I don't smell the stench, but the words form in my mind and berate me for, well, existing. Because everything about my existence is wrong.
I don't know what to do. I know exactly where it comes from. I can even remember names and faces, and sometimes the memories are so clear they stop me in my tracks while I'm going about my business on a normal day. But I've absorbed them. There voices have become my inner voices. Sometimes I can barely hear myself think-- which was the ultimate goal, I suppose. Thinking is what got me into this trouble in the first place. I'm trying to let go of it all, but it won't go. Okay, that's not entirely true-- I've gotten much better over the years. It's not nearly as bad as it used to be. But I still have to battle my internalized self-hate every day-- not constantly anymore, but usually two or three times a day. I want to get over it. I want to stop taking it so seriously. But "better" isn't "good," it's taking me an awfully long time.
This was a really intense experience for me because I kept going, over and over again, HOLY SHIT I THINK THAT ALL THE TIME. The Cunning Man lives in my brain. There is always a part of me that's always screaming those slurs and insults and imprecations at myself: worthless bitch, filthy, unholy, whore, liar, deceiver, defiler of all that is good, dirty, disgusting, nasty, you/I ruin everything. I do this to myself every day. Every. Damn. Day. Literally every day. I beat myself up over everything I've ever done wrong (both morally wrong-- "I shouldn't have been so selfish"-- and factually wrong--"I didn't know the answer to #12 and I should have known that"), but I also accuse myself of doing/wanting to do/being the kind of person who would did things that I have never done and never want to do, including but not limited to things that I honestly don't believe would be necessarily wrong for someone else but irrationally fear would destroy whatever worth I have if I did them because there is something about me that is intrinsically wrong. Even though I know it doesn't make any sense, there's still a part of me that hangs on to the idea, learned many years ago in childhood, that the same mistake that would be very minor if someone else made it would be unforgivable for me, and that some things that I must never, ever think about doing aren't even mistakes for other people-- and since the thought entered my mind, I'm almost as bad as if I'd gone out and done it, so oops. I don't smell the stench, but the words form in my mind and berate me for, well, existing. Because everything about my existence is wrong.
I don't know what to do. I know exactly where it comes from. I can even remember names and faces, and sometimes the memories are so clear they stop me in my tracks while I'm going about my business on a normal day. But I've absorbed them. There voices have become my inner voices. Sometimes I can barely hear myself think-- which was the ultimate goal, I suppose. Thinking is what got me into this trouble in the first place. I'm trying to let go of it all, but it won't go. Okay, that's not entirely true-- I've gotten much better over the years. It's not nearly as bad as it used to be. But I still have to battle my internalized self-hate every day-- not constantly anymore, but usually two or three times a day. I want to get over it. I want to stop taking it so seriously. But "better" isn't "good," it's taking me an awfully long time.
