faceforradio

I'm not a good person. The more I think about it, the less I like myself.

I have this chip on my shoulder that lets me make excuses for being conceited, selfish, inconsiderate and judgmental. ANd I'm sick of blaming my past. I'm twenty-fucking-three. I've been out of highschool and away from those people for many years. I've supposedly forgiven the person who made me hate myself so much.

So why am I still like this?

I have a horrible habit of judging others out of fear of being judged by them, or compared to them. It's petty insecurity that pushes me there.

I know I'm beautiful and intelligent. And I'm afraid of being the person I was before I realized that. Sometimes, I still see the overweight girl in the mirror who hated herself and blamed everyone around her for making her feel that way. I'm thinner and fitter than I've ever been in my entire life. WHy do I still see a need to compare myself to that person??? Some of my friends have suggested that I go to counseling for an eating disorder or body image problem. I seriously considered it and then changed my mind. I always decide tht I'm fine so I don't have to put myself in a position of vulnerability. This insecurity and harshness towards myself makes me really judgmental of others. I'm mean! I hate it. I have to compare myself to every female around me and try to figure out how I'm better than her. What the fuck is that? I'm better than no one! We're all fucking moral equals, and as much as I can preach that in my politics, I still have a constant stream of nastiness running through my blood.

Being smart makes me a prick. I have a constant need to prove myself and set myself above everyone around me. Fuck that! I'm no better than anyone else because I've read books and know what they mean. Whenever I meet someone on the same intellectual plane, or who is smarter or better read, I feel challenged and either lash out (passive aggressively, of course) or feel like a total waste of breath. If the slightest challenge scares me, that doesn't speak well for my position. Or my personality.

I'm terrified of being judged and found unworthy. I've short-changed myself so many times because I'm afraid that all my pomposity wil be disproved and I'll be made a fool. I talk a lot of shit, but I'm afraid to back it up. I blow myself way the fuck out of porportion so people will stay away and not find out what a weak mess I am underneath my self-congratulating smile.

I feel absolutely no connection now to the things that once so rigidly defined me. Yeah, I don't eat animals and avoid animal bi-products, but if someone offers me something to eat, 6 times out of 10, I'll eat it without bothering to ask what's in it (as long as it's not flesh). Veganism was something that set me outside and, in my eyes, above everyone else. Fuck that. It's about health and karma, and I'm tired of feeling the need to perform to everyone else's expectations.

The same goes for straightedge. I do not drink, I fucking hate cigarette smoke, and drugs are fucking stupid. I have no desire to get involved in any of that. However, I cannot stand 96% of straightedge kids. The music means nothing to me, and I feel no attachment whatsoever to the "community" of judgmental, ignorant, violent assholes who claim to be poison-free while filling their lives with psychic and physical toxins (if you're grossly out of shape, you shouldn't be allowed to claim edge). I have personal reasons from abstaining from physical toxins. None of which are any of your business. I don't feel like I have to give a reason not to drink. And I don't feel that I should have to be a complete teetotaler for the rest of my life. I've tasted stuff in the past months and it reminds me why I don't drink. Being in the bar atmosphere and seeing the way alcohol changes people's behavior? Enough reason for me to never go down that path. I hate that I feel pressure from some of my friends to join in at parties and bars. And I hate that certain other of my friends are so goddamn invested in what I do, say, and think. If I ever decide to drink, it will be for my own reasons, and I don't feel that it's necessary for ANYONE to comment on ANY aspect of that decision. For now, and for the foreseeable future, I am as "straightedge" as one who hates the scene can be, no matter what you think of me tasting something. (It was acky, by the way, I don't see how people who drink more than a taste can do it.)

I know that my judgmentalness (new workd, I guess) comes from personal insecurities that stem from events in my childhood and adolescence. I can no longer blame those events, however, and place the responsibility for healing and being a better person completely on my own shoulders. I've had friends who used their own bad pasts to harm others and excuse inexcusable behavior. I don't want to be that kind of person.

My personal spiritual philosophy tells me that everything I've been thinking and feeling lately is bad. Well, no shit. That's obvious. I'm tired of hearing about certain other spritual/religious philosophies. My holy-thn-thou shit is from being a coward, not from my religion. If your religion allows you that behoavior or thought-process, stay away from me. I don't want to hear about your external system of morality. If you need a book or a prophet or whatever to tell you what's right and wrong and how I'm wrong, than your philosophy is deeply, deeply flawed. Live your life by nature and the dharma, not by rules that some long-dead white guy tried to force on his socio-political subordinates.

I know this desn't make much sense, but I really don't care. My professor would tell me that's it poorly organized and loaded with bad usage of language. The fact that I'm even having that thought is just another example of what I don't like about myself. I'm tired of feeling the need to fucking perform to anyone's standards, especially the ones I set for myself out of my fear.

I need to get through this. I hate that I hurt my friends. (And I'm sorry to any of you who are reading this.) I hate that I make other people uncomfortable. I hate that I harm myself. I hate that I judge and ridicule and feel the need to perform. How did I get to be like this???

I have a few options:
1- Deal with it by myself and try to get over it.
2- Go to counseling again and honestly try to work through the mess of psychic scars that have gotten me here.
3- Open up to my friends and start trusting people.
4- Start drinking massive quantities of alcohol so I can just drown all this negativity.
5- Withdraw completely from everyone and everything.
6- Turn to flase religion and mask my weaknesses with external morality.

I haven't been able to stop thinking about this for a while. It fucked up my workout today. My chest gets so tight that I can't breathe. I have nightmares. I'm mean to people who don't deserve it. Everyone is beautiful and deserves to be treated with kindness and love. There is absolutely no reason to immediately put a wall up between myself and others. Half the time when I go into a situation with my Asshole Walls up, the person proves my insecurity wrong and I'm the bad guy. That's the worst thing I could do to them.

Maybe finally admiting to all this is a ste in the right direction. I need to go to temple and spend some time with an empty head and an open heart. . . I remind myself of ahimsa. But before I can be compassionate and loving towards others, I have to be so toward myself. I don't know where to start.