I hate almost everything about myself. I hate the way I look, the way I interact with people, the way I’m flawed. I’m messy. I have nervous habits. I’m bipolar and sometimes I miss my meds and it messes me up. I grind my teeth. I’m stubborn. I can be inconsiderate and selfish, to the detriment of my relationships with people. I have a hard time learning lessons sometimes, and have a tendency to repeat mistakes. I’m having trouble trying to lose weight and can’t for the life of me fit in my jeans, despite the fact that I go to the gym three times a week. But everyone has their problems, right?

Not me. I have to be perfect, because it seems to me like other people are. All I see in other people are things I perceive myself lacking. Look how forgiving that person is. Look how beautiful that person is. Look how kind they are. Look how good they are at time management. They’re skinnier, healthier. Happier. Look how much they have their life together. Or if they don’t, look at how well they’re handling it; they’re still keeping themselves from completely falling apart. I want to be like that. But I’m not, and I feel like I never will be.

I don’t feel this way all the time; I don’t know how I’d live if I did. But it is always in there, beneath the surface. I’m toxically negative toward myself, in a way that’s likely very exhausting for people to be around. I’m able to cover it up most of the time, but anyone who’s very close to me knows my secret -- that I sometimes need a lot of help, and when I’m desperate, my life depends on it. Most people who see that walk away from it. And I hate that, too, because then I feel like I’m a failure for not being able to keep up relationships, for exhausting people and needing them so much. I must be awful if I can’t get that person to like me; they seem to like everybody.

I can’t seem to let go, or forgive myself. I need grace, and I’m always looking for someone to prove that the mean thoughts I have about myself in my head are wrong. Because most of the time, they win. They’re my everyday reality. Anything can set them off, and when it does, I go in a downward spiral.

What might be exhausting for you to listen to is maddening for me to endure. How would you feel if you had someone constantly telling you that everything you do makes you a failure? What if no matter how hard you tried or what you accomplished, it wasn’t good enough? That there was always someone who performed better than you did? If you constantly had someone replaying things you said and telling you that you said something wrong, and now everyone is going to look at you differently? If they told you because you forgot deodorant one day, or spilled coffee on someone, or forgot to do the dishes, everyone is going to hate you? You probably wouldn’t believe them; you’d think they were being nitpicky and rude. You’d want to cut that person out of your life, right? I’d love to do that, but that person lives in my brain. That person is me, and I can’t escape her.

It gets worse when I’m stressed. I just freeze up. I’ve called my mom twice this week crying because I feel like I’m incapable of performing well in my program. I feel like I’m not fit to be here, that I don’t deserve this. I know not everyone gets to go to graduate school. Not everyone gets graduate school paid for. And what am I even doing with it? I’m choking. I’m just treading water with assignments. Even now, I have two papers and accounting homework due tomorrow, and I’m sitting here writing my article instead. Even though I’m taking care of a responsibility, even though I’m getting this done a day earlier than I usually do, I’m still doing something wrong.

I can’t give myself grace. I’d love to, but I can’t. Because I feel like if I dismiss my mistakes, I’ll never learn from them. I know there has to be differences between remembering a mistake and trying to learn and move on from it, forgetting the mistake entirely and never learning from it, or putting the mistake on constant replay and never forgiving yourself for it. I get stuck between the last two.

What can I even do? I’m a failure at everything. Who’s even going to care about reading this? I’m such a drama queen. I just need to suck it up; check my privilege; know where I am in life right now, the immense number of opportunities I have; pull myself up by my bootstraps; be an adult, because nobody is going to take care of me when I fall apart. I have to learn to care for myself.

But how do I even do that when I’m too afraid to take the first step, because if I misstep, I’m a failure? When I have to call friends up and ask them to tell me that I’m worth something, because I can’t see it for myself? I have no hope for myself, for my future. I’m dying for someone to tell me they see something in me that I can’t. When you can’t trust yourself, you have to rely more on the words and opinions of others. After a while, you stop feeling human.

I can’t get locked into this pattern, because I don’t know what will happen if I do. My whole life could actually fall apart. I could flunk out of school; I could never be able to find a job again. I could disappoint and even alienate friends and family. Similar things have happened before.

Right now, it’s about treading water. Right now, it’s about taking it one step at a time. I’ve written this article, and I’ve made a lot of progress on one of my essays that’s due tomorrow. I’ll finish that, start my other one, and maybe do some yoga. I’ve already exhausted all my support for the day. I’d hate to burden anyone else; they have their own lives to live, their own struggles to deal with. Right now, distraction is the only way I can pull myself away from these thoughts. People can only give you so much. Some days, the only thing I can do is stuff the thoughts deep down and not deal with them, and smother them out with tasks. But there’s problems associated with that, too.

See? Even when I’m just trying to survive, I still can’t do anything right.