I hate myself today. I hate every part. My personality, the way I look, the way I act. The hatred flows through my veins like black sludge, making me unable to move, making it hard to breathe. I lay in my bed, unable to get myself out, with my fiancé Kurtis holding me telling me everything is going to be OK. But it isn’t. This hatred will never go away, it will always consume me. That’s what it tells me. It says to me in a slimy voice, “You will never be free of me you silly girl, you will never be happy, you don’t even deserve happiness.” Kurtis holds me some more, and tells me he loves every part of me. “He’s lying! How could anyone love you? You are nothing. He has been fooled.” Kurtis tries to distract me by telling stories of my greatness. “Hahaha… nice try. She doesn’t believe you. That’s not how she remembers it… is it, Allison? You probably did something horrible right before.” Finally, after what feels like all day but in reality was only about 1 hour this time, (sometimes it is all day, or all week, or in really bad times a month or longer,) I pull myself up, so I can write this. As I write, I feel the black sludge ease up, I feel that voice fading away, and I feel stronger. Don’t get me wrong, I still hate myself, but no longer enough to hold me down. Kurtis put some of his strength in me, and I slowly feel it ease into my soul and my muscles, allowing them to move again. The black, tremulous clouds are still lingering above me blocking the sunlight, but at least I can see the sky again. Before it felt like there was no sky, no outside world, just me and my hatred. Eventually, the skies will clear again, and I will come to love myself once

Kurtis put some of his strength in me, and I slowly feel it ease into my soul and my muscles, allowing them to move again. The black, tremulous clouds are still lingering above me blocking the sunlight, but at least I can see the sky again. Before it felt like there was no sky, no outside world, just me and my hatred. Eventually, the skies will clear again, and I will come to love myself once more, like I did only 2 days ago. Funny how quickly we can go from love to hate… For now, I have to be strong. Even on days when the hatred doesn’t go away, sometimes my strength will still be here. Imagine an Amazonian warrior princess that battles my Evil Voice. She says “Hey, she may not be perfect, and she may hate herself today, but I don’t. She is MY little pile of imperfection, and you can’t have her today, so SCRAM.” Then out of her arm comes a blast of purple light that melts away the Evil Voice, for now at least. She turns to me, in a heap on the floor, and holds me just like Kurtis. She says “Hey dummy, you see this man holding you? He loves you, so you must not be THAT bad.”

Friends, I hope you have someone to hold you when you are feeling this darkness. It doesn’t have to be a lover, it can be your best friend, your therapist, your cute little dog. It is so nice to have help sometimes. Maybe I can be there for you in my own way. I can help you validate your feelings, try to make you feel worthy of love- because you are. We all are. Maybe we don’t feel like it at times, but I challenge you to find the warrior within yourself. Everyone deserves happiness, but it doesn’t just come to us and sit down on our lap. Sometimes we have to go out and find it ourselves. It isn’t easy, sometimes we don’t really know what we want yet. Sometimes we think too short term- “All I really want is to go out, drink and party.” Yes, that brings you happiness, but it is only temporary. It makes you feel really good for a night, then you wake up the next morning like “What did I just do…” and sometimes that is awesome! It is so much fun! I challenge you today, though, to find out what REALLY makes you happy. What can you do to get yourself there? For me, it was music. I wanted to find a place to live where I could live off of music comfortably- so we did some research, saved up our money, and moved all the way to Colorado. Sure, it was hard. Sure, I regretted it as soon as I got here, and went through some depression because I had no friends (besides Kurtis.) But then my warrior princess told me to shut the hell up and find the happiness for myself- and believe me when I say it started coming to me.

When you start to do things for yourself to make yourself happy, you begin to radiate that self-worth and happiness, and suddenly you will notice that you begin to attract it. Positive people will start to show up in your life, and the dreams you had a year ago that you thought would take ages to accomplish, will suddenly start to come together. The power of positive thinking is a thing, and it works. Now I am not saying that this is a cure for depression, because it isn’t. It still knocks on my door when it wants to. The voice still overpowers me sometimes and convinces me once again that I am worthless, and I will accomplish nothing.

Now, though, with the help from my therapist and my Kurtis, I feel like I can take him on a little bit easier. It becomes more manageable. I hope that this blog can help others like me to build up the strength within yourselves to fight for what you believe in. Fight for your happiness! Take out the negativity in your life and replace it with positivity! People that bring you down, jobs that suck the life out of you… Ditch them! Do it for yourself and no one else! I believe in you!

Written by Allison Louise 

Stay tuned for a link to her new adventure in blogging.