Check out entry fifth where Miss Misery talked about how she feels about how others think about her.

Entry6-It’s a Bad Day

Dear Marsha,

Last month, you asked me to tell you what it is like to have a bad day.  It’s very vulnerable to stay all this but…it is exhausting…exhausting fighting my emotions all the time. The bad thoughts, The bad emotions. Everything feels 10 times more than what the emotions should be. For example, I may be having a bad day at work, but I feel it’s the worst day ever. I feel like nothing good happens to me. I feel extremely stressed. When in actuality, it’s just a normal bad day. But no good thing can cover up the bad day. I truly feel crazy. Like I am losing my mind. I talk to myself in my mind more than I talk to anyone else out loud. It’s pretty pathetic. That’s why I hate myself so much. And this isn’t like having a conversation with God throughout your day. You usually get comfort and wisdom from Him. This is different.

I’m just constantly talking myself out of feeling anything. My regular thoughts consist of me saying

“I wonder if I was supposed to say that?”

“Ugh, she probably hates me now”

“Why can’t I just get a grip?”

“Ms. Misery, pull yourself together, you are being ridiculous”

“See they didn’t invite you; they really don’t like you like that”

“It’s better to just be alone”

“No one can truly enjoy being friends with me”

“I totally suck”

“Stop saying that!”

“You’re going to be fine”

“Nothing you do will get them to want to be around you”

“You’re just there, that’s why they want to talk to you. Not because they really want to”

“This is why you don’t have close friends”

“You messed up again. Good luck with fixing that”

“Why do I keep fighting?”

These are just some thoughts that I constantly fight 24/7. I’m not being dramatic. This is my brain on high amounts of stress. By the end of the day, I’m completely exhausted and want to cry. I feel like such a loser not being able to control my thoughts. I feel crazy… all the time. If you wonder, why people with depression are driven to suicide. It’s really cause they want to turn their mind off permanently. It’s effortless to give into the negative voices cause it’s so much easily to bow to them then fight them. I don’t blame people who commit suicide. I’m only 27. How much longer can I really do this?

Understanding Hate

Dear Miss Misery,

Thank you again for this letter.  Hmmm I think I have had some of those thoughts myself.  Despite what others that know me think, I struggle with my place in other people’s lives, if I am really wanted at a party, why I wasn’t invited to certain events and those kinds of things.  But to have them so often is hard for me to grasp, so your explanation is eye opening.  I don’t think I understand true hate.  I thought I hated my dad for abusing me but I know that if he had turned his life around, I would have loved him.  So I struggle with thinking I truly hated him.  However, there was a girl who I think I came close to hating.  She was a conniving, manipulative, fork tongued liar–that if I saw her being beaten in the street–I would let her enemy give her a few good blows before I even try to whisper ever so slightly, my protest.  So when you say you hate yourself, my quickest thought was to ask myself if you hated yourself the way I hated this girl.  If the answer is yes, I would say the exact same things to her that you say to yourself…

“See they didn’t invite you; they really don’t like you like that”, cause I would never want her to think that she was accepted, all she would do is hurt other people.

“It’s better to just be alone”, so that she doesn’t infect anyone else with her wicked evil ways.

“No one can truly enjoy being friends with you”, because she was only a friend to her wicked ways.

“So and So you totally suck”, because she does.

“Nothing you do will get them to want to be around you”, because you’re such a jerk and you probably deserve every bad thing that could happen to a person.  

You see hate says the meanest, cruelest things to that person because they desire hurt– or death.  As long as you continue to hate yourself in this way, your conversation with each other will always be despicable, nasty, ratchet, and bitter.  How do we change the toxic conversation we have with ourselves?  I would suppose it would be to start loving ourselves more.  I know very well that you are sending me your letters in raw states, or even writing about things that used to be.  

However, for the sake of those reading, we must start where you see yourself.  We cannot have a decent conversation with anyone if there is that hate there.  Why not?  Well, do you see good in someone you hate?  Do you see the good qualities of that person?  Do you encourage that person to have healthy relationships?  Heck, can you even be in the same room with that person without thinking about how you would tell them how you can’t stand them? If you couldn’t do that with a person you dislike, how can you do that with yourself?  

So how do we change the toxic conversation?  We start loving ourselves.  It doesn’t start off right away but when we let go of our hate we start to look and see the qualities that were hidden by detest.  I know very well that this is not something that happens overnight.  I know that what I am saying makes sense on paper but there is more to it.  Can you tell me what are some things that help your dislike to yourself?

Thank you very much again.

Marsha