Number 178

 The Most Devious Lie

Here is the truth. I am a good person. I celebrate and practice kindness. I intentionally look for ways to help others. I listen and learn so that I can use my privilege to lighten the load for other folks. I volunteer and am active in groups that assist folks that need a helping hand. I support causes that work for fairness, justice, and equality. I look out for and support my family and other loved ones. There is only one problem. I don't believe any of it.

As a consequence, I am left at sea, aimlessly drifting in a sea of negative self talk and feelings of unworthiness. Where isolation feels like the only respite, because there is no way that anyone else could want to be with me. In a room full of people, I am utterly alone.

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I've done something like this once before, where I began a post while amidst one of my depressive episodes only to return to it, unfinished, the next day when the sun is shining a bit brighter. And just like that previous time, I am choosing to post the thoughts written by me when I was at a low ebb.

Negative self talk and I are old... acquaintances. I was thinking 'friends,' but it is no friend of mine. For most of my life, it has whispered the most insidious thoughts into my ears. Thoughts of ineptness and unworthiness. Thoughts that inspire isolation where they can flourish and grow like weeds that threaten to take over an entire garden.

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Here is my vicious cycle. In general, I don't enjoy talking on the phone - especially when I need to engage with someone for their assistance in completing some sort of personal business. Why? Because I feel unworthy of taking up another person's time and/or energy. Where did I get such a crazy idea? Why, negative self talk, of course. "So," I can hear you thinking, "Since you know what's holding you back, go ahead and engage with the world, and tell the negative self talk to fuck off." While I agree that that is a simple and elegant solution to the problem, there's just one problem. For me, negative self talk is similar to a pernicious computer virus. And by this point it has completely corrupted my hard drive to such an extent that I often feel frozen, or stuck in place. And what happens then? I engage in negative self talk, which further reinforces my unworthiness, which further reinforces my need to isolate myself from the world, which further reinforces my fear of picking up the phone and taking care of myself, and on and on and on and on and on...