Fear & Self-Loathing

This month, in recognition of World Mental Health Day , I’ll be sharing 30 snippets from my book, All My Heroes Are Weirdos.

It’s a story about a lot of things; about love and life and dreams, but more than anything, it’s a story about how I lost my mind, and how I found it again – hidden where it had always been. A mind that went from one of great strength and assertion to one of complete and utter weakness; a deluded, tortured mind.

It’s about a journey I went on, a trillion serendipitous moments that on their own look like a series of tiny coincidences, yet, as the story unfolds, every star emanates in the form of a character, a glance, a smile, a word uttered, a move made, a feeling felt and all play a role in this clever little script that is life.

One hateful comment was enough to cannibalise the dregs of self-esteem I had left, making me loathe myself just that little bit more. My inner critic began feeding itself off his hateful validation and my self-confidence was depleting at a rapid rate. When I looked in the mirror, I saw the person he told me I was, I was ugly inside and out. I was losing my sense of self.

As time went on, the insults were getting more and more intimate; every single molecule of my face and body was being bludgeoned by his slaughterous syllables. I was under his microscope, my open pores waiting for his venom to seep in.