It’s up to you, but I’d really strongly suggest that you take steps to curb this. I imagine it will be making you feel stronger at the time on account of tasty homornes, but it will be making life harder. Other people’s words, any form of reassurance or positive feedback you receive during the day is not going to compete with a half-hour rant from someone who knows you better than they do. The part of you which already believes you are a bad person may become more and more sincere. You call yourself a cunt here; the idea that some people rate you highly is a joke.

Yet you’d be fairly horrified to see this happening to anyone you cared about — it would be an ordeal to watch a stranger being spoken to like that. You don’t need to convince yourself that you are a wonderful person with a heart full of kittens and marmalade, but if you’re going to get through what you need to get through, you do need not to abuse yourself. You could have far more faults and weaknesses without deserving that.

So practical suggestions if you do want to stop: I’d start by toning it down — calling yourself average, mediocre and unimportant — challenge yourself to make up middle-of-the road insults, threaten to wear your t-shirt back-to-front or over-fill the kettle. I’d also suggest making it about other people; politicians, celebrities, annoying acquaintances you don’t need to look in the eye too often. I’d also recommend doing it in writing rather that vocalising this, preferably by hand so you can do scratchy writing with satanic doodles in the borders. Listen to angry music or play fast computer games. Suck on an ice cube.

Whatever you do, do take care.

Congratulations! :D :p

Also, your likening of the inside of your head to “a wet week­end spent in a card­board box” displays an adroit use of imagination, so I would say all is not lost (or gone). Perhaps you are just thinking about it too much… :)

Honest dialogue is harder to find than…well, than it used to be. It’s part of the reason I find myself writing here after long breaks away from the place. It goes back to what I said in that last post, about this almost feeling like a place where I can write honestly (though, as I also mentioned, I don’t, not entirely, because the awareness of people reading stops the words turning into the ugly screed I would otherwise pull out of my chest in private).

Thank you, too, for your thoughts on the last point. They’re certainly noted. For — perhaps rather ironically considering that we’re commenting on it now — reasons of privacy, I won’t say more about that. I probably said too much originally, despite how vague I kept my words.

As for the issue with your friend, I think that the perception of risk in harming a relationship through an admission like that sometimes turns out to be much worse than the actual outcome. Although I suppose it also depends on how much is hinging on a specific desired outcome (if there is one), so there is that to consider. Preparation for all possible outcomes is necessary before charging forward. I have shared what felt like stronger than friendship feelings with friends in the past and once the initial awkwardness was over (and I got over my disappointment), it ended up strengthening the friendships even more. This is simply anecdotal evidence, of course, but I just wanted to share that I’ve experienced how fast something like this can grow out of proportion in one’s mind, and how finally deciding to act on it turned out okay in the end. Living with something like that trapped inside oneself can easily do more damage than sharing it can.

I now ‘journal’ as often as I can, writing purely for myself and yes, it’s mostly a splatter.

My blog is starting to warm up again, purely as you say, because it’s NOT social media, it won’t instantly have eyes on it so there is time to pause, breath and reflect on what I am writing there.

I am 40 later this year. A common thread? Our ages plus the current state of social media?

I process my own thoughts and emotions best when I write. Those rarely see the light of day, they never have and never will. But slowly, ever so slowly, I’m starting to realise that ‘exposing’ myself (the real me that few know and see) isn’t actually as scary as I thought. The words will always change, but the process will remain valid.

Mia — Chomsky is certainly right about that. I can’t remember when rationality has ever come into my armoury of skills.