Okay, time to shed some dead weight.
I forgive myself for being sick. For not being able to cope with things. For being depressed and isolated and anxious and disorganized and messy and all the other unpleasantness that comes from being so sick.
I forgive myself for never cleaning anything in this bedroom. It’s utterly filthy here and I forgive myself for that. Sick people often have trouble looking after themselves and their immediate environment. I forgive myself for letting it get this bad.
I forgive myself for never getting my life started. For never even becoming an adult. For not being able to crawl out of the deep dark hole being taken out of university threw me into on my own.
Relatedly, I forgive myself for hiding from life all these 25 years. For living inside my computer and shutting out the real world entirely. I’ve coped the best I could for all these years and it’s pretty amazing that I have made it as far as I have given my problems. I should be patting myself on the back for surviving, not kicking myself when I am down.
I forgive myself for those l25 lost years entirely. Hating myself for them only adds to the forces that caused them in the first place. I have not failed and I have not wasted time and I have no reason to feel guilty about how my life turned out.
I’ve done the best I could with what I’ve got.
I forgive myself for being fat. My depression makes exercise kind of tricky. I barely have the motivation to get out of bed every day. Finding the motivation to torture myself with painful exercise for as long as it takes to get skinny is so far out of the realm of possibility that you would need a dozen Hubble telescopes to see it from here.
I forgive myself for not taking better care of myself. I do what I can do. I know everything I “should” do. Means nothing. I fundamentally do not feel like I am worth the effort of caring for myself because of my neglectful childhood, and combined with my low motivation levels, that means self-neglect.
I don’t want it but I can’t help it so forget it.
I forgive myself for being weak and timid. Being raped when I was four years old left me with a simply massive emotional wound that crippled my entire being and left me with a terrible soul sickness that was then left to fester for thirty years as I kept the secret of it so well I forgot about the whole thing (sorta) until I was in my thirties. It was and is a wound far too deep and terrible for me to ever have been able to heal by myself.
I forgive myself for hating myself. I didn’t know any better. It’s taken me a long time to make enough room in my mind to separate my self-image from my illness.
I forgive myself for healing so slow.
There’s probably tons more but right now I need a nap.
I forgive myself for that, too.
More after the break.
More self forgiveness
Yes, I am actually resuming a topic. Quelle surprise. Quel shoc.
I forgive myself for being somewhat trying to be around sometimes. For being kinda gross and smelly sometimes and disheveled and shabby pretty much all the time. For having gross visible medical issues that are hard to ignore, like the wound on my leg and the issues with my scalp. For making my friends worry about me because they see me getting sicker and sicker but can’t do anything to stop it. For sometimes being somewhat distant due to the depression. For being somewhat clueless and needing to be rescued from my own distractedness sometimes. For being a goof.
I also forgive myself for being a burden. Somewhat of a high maintenance pet. Sure, as the above paragraph shows, there are certain costs to associating with me. Not unreasonable ones, and I am under no obligation to be as user friendly as possible at all times, but still. I feel bad about it.
So I hereby forgive myself for costing people whatever it costs to be around me. Phew, that’s a big one. I really feel the weight of that one as I pick it up to lay it down. It might take a little while for that one to fully leave my system.
But with a voice firm with resolve but also trembling with effort, I declare that I deserve my place in the world as much as anyone else does. And that includes my share of resources, such as (but not limited to) love, attention, affection, patience, hassle, consideration, inclusion, and even food water oxygen and shelter.
Yes, even those.
I don’t have to apologize just for being alive and I have nothing to be ashamed of.
I forgive myself for being ashamed of myself, though. It’s how I was raised. Resented since the day I was conceived. Never treated as an equal member of the family. Grew up feeling like a guest who overstayed his welcome.
You all know the drill.
So while I am at it : I forgive myself for being an accident. Wasn’t my choice. Wasn’t my idea. I didn’t ask to be the product of a highly improbable tubal ligation failure. I didn’t show up in my mother’s womb demanding to be born.
And I didn’t choose to disrupt an already settled family dynamic, either.
So I completely forgive myself for how I entered the world.
And I forgive myself for how I was treated as a result. I didn’t deserve the neglect, resentment, disdain, and hostility I received. I should have been treated with love and care and attention and acceptance and given my full share of all the good things in life, and the fact that this did not happen is not my fault.
I also forgive myself for being raped, being bullied, and being a wimpy whiny kid.
Like I said above the line, I did the best I could with what I had.
And I didn’t have much.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.