I've been in therapy for 11 years. Sometimes it helps - Sometimes it doesn't. Today it isn't.
I've never really thought much of myself as a person. I know I'm not particularly attractive. I'm not the slimmest of people you'll ever meet. I have no career or am anything anyone would aspire to be but I've always tried to do my best by people, treat people the way I'd want someone to treat me as a friend and give them 100% loyalty whilst being as honest as I could be, in return. To me that always seemed enough and I guess for some it is, as I have some of the most amazing friends anyone could ever hope for. Some not so great, but that's all part of the 'selection box' that is friendship, not everyone has to be the same and you can connect with people on so many different levels of closeness. I must be doing something right to have such close friends in my life, surely.
But why can't I like myself? All the therapy, friends and self-help books all clearly state that if you can't like yourself then how can you expect anyone else to? But It's hard. I blame myself for a lot of my past, even though, clearly when problems started I was too young to even know it was wrong or know how to stop it, I just went along with it because that's all I knew. It didn't feel anything out of the norm. By the time I realised I needed help I was too scared to ask anyone and in turn started punishing myself and suffering in silence when life wasn't 'fun' anymore, when it really started to hurt. When I don't face up to things I can get by. I know things are there that need dealing with, in the corner of the room and I can just sort of see them from the corner of my eye but if I don't acknowledge them, if I look the other way then maybe, just maybe I can have a good day and get through it without the constant need to punish myself.
Sometimes I don't want to be here. I often fantasise how much easier it would be for people, how happier they'd be had no-one ever known me or had the burden that is Dave Starmer forced upon their shoulders. If I'd never tried to kill myself or been forced to have therapy then I wouldn't have to face my past, I could have carried on and left it behind untouched. I tolerated things for a very long time until I actually had the guts to attempt to take my own life originally. That's where it all started to go wrong, when people saw I wasn't coping and wasn't this 'bubbly happy-chappy' anymore. I felt vulnerable and exposed though, now people could see I wasn’t coping and it was dangerous because they’d want to know why. It's looking back and going through it all again that constantly brings me down, that's what I'm doing in therapy (when the session isn't cancelled, that is.) It seems positive in theory to address the past but once you’ve started you can’t stop, it’s out of your hands and that's fine whilst you're in the comfort of the therapy room but when the session ends and you're coming home to an empty house, where is the support then? You can't put that kind of burden onto friendships, even the strongest of friendships would suffer under such a weight, as has been proven in the past. Everything I've touched in the past I've tainted. Friendships, Relationships... All soured by past/constant unwanted emotions and my need to feel something, to feel like I was worth something. To feel wanted. For someone I care about to care about me just as much and not want to leave when the going gets tough or the 'smiles' fade, because they do fade eventually.
I don't feel any of that. I can't feel anything positive at times. I'm just here, screaming to feel something I can hold onto that’ll get me through the day, that’ll make me want to get out of bed of a morning. On occasion I've hurt myself just to feel something. Anything to distract me from this horrible fucked-up existence I'm being kept in against my will. If there was a pain-free way to do it, to end things by just switching a switch after saying ‘Goodbye’ then I would do it. If that day ever happens you can hate me for it all you like but I'll be free and I won’t care.
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