In Your Head

Two posts in one day? Must be a special occasion.
Or I'm too exhausted from the week to censor my thoughts, and they are struggling to escape.

Per usual.



The second thought doesn't go with the first, though, and I strongly dislike grouping things that are not similar or at least related by a stream of consciousness. These are not, thus...

Anyway, there was a time not so long ago when I believed - deluded myself, I guess - that I could change for the better the self-image of my female friends. Not even girlfriends, just...all of them.

I was younger, sure, and a bit more naive. It may even sound somewhat sexist.

But I'd rather by sexist than stupid enough to ignore an increasingly obvious societal trend.
Thing is, I've learned since then that changing a perspective doesn't really work from the outside.

You can sum up all the affirmations in the world, argue until your face goes slack from exhaustion...it doesn't matter.

It also isn't unique to women. Men are just as bad, but ours are masked in masculine endeavors while yours, girls, are written on every billboard from here to the coasts and back.

It took me some time to realize that. Maybe I am a little bit of a chauvinist - I've always felt more that my guy friends can take care of themselves. Sure, sexist, whatever. I make no apologies for opening doors, and I never will.

Point is, these self-image issues are not a thing to be combated with affirmations and therapy. They aren't even a thing unto themselves.

Society builds us an image, in random pieces, of the perfect person. It isn't the same for everyone, not even similar by necessity. It's an amalgamation of what we see and like, don't like, and aspire towards.

That in itself is fairly harmless. The constant struggle towards perfection is what defines the human race, in no small part.

Thing is, we are the ones forced to live in our own heads and constantly see our own selves compare to our ideals. Inevitably we always fall short.

That could be okay too, but we aren't careful. No one teaches us to be careful, because a little doubt is healthy.

But self-image issues are not like normal doubt, they are a more virulent thing...one could almost accuse them of being malevolent, however odd that may sound in the saying.

Like a disease, like a cancer, they spread and fester and injure further with every moment they are nurtured. Unlike a bit of healthy skepticism, they erode away at any positive reinforcement we provide...etching us down like an acid until all we have left are these insecurities.

Most of us, by this time, are aware of the wrongness...but it's too late, isn't it? We're skin and bone and fear and doubt, and the only people wanting to help are just as stranded in the mud.

This is the lie that the doubt sells us, and we buy it. No one told us otherwise.

But this sort of doubt is not healthy, it is not normal, it is not allowable. It is a cancer, a virus, a disease, a thing. It is a rabid boar to be put down. It is not something to reason with via affirmation and counter-argument.

The way to beat it is to treat it like the enemy that it is. It's easy to identify, you all know what it sounds like. It's that little whisper in the back of your head every time you see yourself in any light. Not the one saying, "You could do better." - that one is alright. This is the whisper saying, "You'll never do any better. You are stupid, fat, ugly, thin, too smart, too gay, too hairy, too tall, too short, and there is nothing you can do about it."

The typical fight with it is to do things that are drastic, and usually out-of-character. We know better, but sometimes it becomes too much. This whisper can be shut up with self-injury in any of its various forms, and that is the most frequent outlet I've seen.

But the real way to win is purely in the mind. Identify the whisper, pick it out apart from your other thoughts and hold it there until you are never confused about where it is coming from again. Maybe issues when you were a kid, maybe a bully, whatever. It doesn't matter what or where it comes from.

What matters is that now you've got it alone in your head. Your head. Your mind. It is the enemy, eroding your ability to believe in yourself, and it will not stop until you have nothing left.

So kill it. Don't let it whisper. Don't bolster yourself with affirmations. Yell at it, scream at it, kick and thrash and bite and tear and burn it every time it dares to speak to you. Torture it in whatever sick and twisted way you like - take the chance to live out those darker thoughts you have sometimes, express the violence. But kill it every time it surfaces. Make it a point to do it at least a few times every day.

Eventually it will go away. - No. That is a lie. It is fed with doubt, and things like that never really go away. You knew that already.

Truth, though? Eventually it will not surface so much. The fighting becomes so automatic that you'll quell the whisper before it takes a breath. That is important. That is victory.

Here's to our insecurities, folks. Didn't mean to get all preachy.

- C