I wrote this when I was 25. \u00a0I look back at my life from this place of feeling so much better \u2014 though it’s also extremely unfamiliar \u2014 and see how much pain I was in. \u00a0The constant criticism of myself, the belief that I had nothing to offer the world, was what I learned from my parents. \u00a0This is something I am trying to leave behind, let go of, so I can move into this new world where I have something to offer.<\/p>\n
I haven’t been able to read any of this early writing. \u00a0Every time I’ve glanced at it, wondering if I could use it in a blog post, I was immediately triggered back into an unbearable place, and I would quickly close the book and get focussed on something else.<\/p>\n
(I’ve spent the last 24 hours trying to find language for what just looking at\u00a0my journal for the 60’s and 70’s would do to me. \u00a0It felt like I was broken into pieces and sucked into a vortex of darkness and pain, and I slammed the door as fast as I could.)<\/p>\n
Some years ago, when I was doing Journey Into Courage<\/a>, and after I learned that my self-mutilation was a response to childhood abuse, I started to put together a book of excerpts from my journals. \u00a0I called it “Written in Blood<\/a>,” because I had both written and painted with the blood from the razor cut on my wrist. \u00a0This is the book I was wanting to get published, when I said “If I publish a book, that will prove that I deserve to live, even though my parents were disappointed in me.” \u00a0I never looked at the book again. \u00a0Recently, I decided to burn the pages without looking at them again. \u00a0It took weeks. \u00a0As I was burning the last group of pages, this poem stood out, so I checked it and found it in my journal.<\/p>\n 2\/20\/67<\/p>\n ME the\u00a0cold, rational part of myself, the one who says ‘ought’, the one who says ‘be responsible’, the ‘father’, the critical parent.\u00a0 The one who says ‘you must be socially acceptable’, ‘you must find work’, ‘you can’t sit around day-dreaming all the time’, ‘stop moping’, ‘stop looking for some great impossible mythic fulfillment and start living in the real world’.<\/p>\n burden to your friends, disbeliever of your friends i know that i have friends that i should call and yet i cannot bother them \u2014 i am unworthy to bother them with my paltry life.<\/p>\n i want someone to love me \u2014 how could anyone waste waste waste why don’t you just go die<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I wrote this when I was 25. \u00a0I look back at my life from this place of feeling so much better \u2014 though it’s also extremely unfamiliar \u2014 and see how much pain I was in. \u00a0The constant criticism of … Continue reading
\nwaste waste waste
\nnuisance nuisance nuisance
\nclumsy, ugly, stupid
\nself-centered, blind
\npolluter of air, polluter of water
\nwishy washy idealist
\ncoward
\nclumsy, ugly, stupid
\nconfused, defensive
\nwaster of inherited brain power
\nwaster of food, air, living space.
\nparasite on the lives of docile men in grey suits
\nselfish, weak, worthless
\nunable to contribute anything of value to anyone
\nugly, stupid, self-pitying
\nwaste waste waste waste waste
\nnuisance nuisance nuisance<\/p>\n
\nyou see only mirrors, never windows
\nyou wander down lost corridors & fear to open doors
\nlost, blind, stupid, coward
\nclumsy, ugly selfish
\nwaste waste waste
\nnuisance nuisance nuisance
\nwhat justification is there for your life
\ndoes there have to be a justification?
\nonly in the living itself and that is poorly done<\/p>\n
\nlove me?<\/p>\n
\nnuisance, nuisance, nuisance
\ngloomy, burden, a drag
\nselfish, self centered, self-conscious
\nweak, cowardly, blind, clumsy
\ndoer of nothing
\nwaster of food
\npolluter of air, polluter of water<\/p>\n