Self Loathing & Camomile Tea

Introduction

If I disappeared, would anyone notice?

This is only one example of the myriad of questions that I have asked myself over my lifetime. All for different reasons, different causes, different variations. But in the end, the premise is the same.

What am I even doing here?           I want this to stop

Why am I like this?           I don't want to do this anymore

I cant stand this feeling anymore           I just want to be normal

This feeling deep inside that I am lacking, that there is something fundamentally wrong with me, and that cannot be corrected. That despite the positives in my life, all I can see is the negative. That although I have a loving family, a supportive husband, and understanding friends, all I can truly feel deep inside is my own twisted reflection of myself.

My own self loathing.

It isn't always this way. I have times when I feel 'normal'. When I maybe even feel happy. I enjoy the sun, spend time with my friends, and find solace in the few little things that I have of my own. The things that make me individual, that bring me happiness. I like to draw, paint, take photographs. Anything that is a creative or artistic outlet, I tend to gravitate towards.

It isn't always gray, dark and gloomy. It isn't always woe is me, why is my life so hard. I know many living outside this bubble people like myself occupy have a preconceived notion that we are solemn all the time. That it is never good, and always bad. But that is simply not the case.

Yes, my good isn't as good as some others. I learned a term in college that was the most accurate description of my feelings I had ever heard. Dysthymic. The feeling of never being happier than an eight out of ten. Never truly feeling fulfilled or satisfied with ones place in the world.

That is how I feel. Even on my happiest day, my wedding day, I still can't say I was any more than an eight in terms of a 'happiness scale'. There was no reason, please be assured. The day was beautiful, the weather perfect. The day went off without a hitch, and I married the most supportive man I could ever have asked for. My honeymoon was incredible, the islands of the Bahamas living up to their paradise reputation.

Everything was perfect.

But it still never brought me to a state of elation. It couldn't seem to break through that glass ceiling with the giant eight painted on it that I had been trapped under my whole life.

I returned home from my honeymoon, opened the wedding gifts, basked in the newlywed glow. And slowly life returned to normal.

But then the sadness set in, and all the happiness I felt at the time quickly faded. I felt off, even though I couldn't quite place the reason. My mother suggested it was because the excitement and anticipation of the wedding was over. I considered maybe it was because I was afraid of this new chapter of my life. I really couldn't place the reason, but I knew I felt it deeply. So deep, that I cried almost every night.

It passed, of course. Like many ups and downs on this roller coaster of emotion I live on, the simplest of things can bring me to a high, while something as small as a change in weather can bring me crashing down.

I had little incidents on and off over my childhood, but never really knew what they were, or the cause. I would be happy one moment, then low the next. I panicked at the simplest of things, crying over something as silly as selling our trailer. I was labeled 'dramatic' or 'negative'. I felt the symptoms that I would later come to understand and be able to label, but as a child, all I knew was that I was scared, and didn't know why.