I am titanium

I made a playlist called “Wounded Self-Esteem.”  I immediately loathed myself for doing it.

I thought maybe listening to upbeat songs about how I’m not a complete fucking failure might help me feel like less of a complete fucking failure.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Today, I was thinking that it might be nice if I had any self-respect at all.  Who am I kidding?  My self-esteem is not wounded; it is non-existent.  My presence in my own life is irrelevant.  It’s actually kind of sad.

One of the songs on my sad little playlist is “Titanium.”  It is ridiculously catchy.  “You shoot me down, but I won’t fall.  I am Titanium.”

And it occurred to me, that despite my constant whining and my complete lack of a backbone, I am actually one tough motherfucker. 

I mean, I have literally beaten myself up, have literally have cut myself to pieces to protect the people I care about.  I chose to suffer, I chose to take their failings into myself, and thus relieve them of their burden.  Maybe I didn’t know any better.  But I survived it.

I am, albeit slowly, coming to terms with the fact that my parents didn’t care about me.  Enough.  They didn’t care about me enough.  They were not willing to sacrifice for me, they were not willing to be strong, or couldn’t be.  They prioritized cable television and cigarettes over my physical and mental health.  I let them.  But I survived it.  It’s in the past.  If only the past would stop bitch-slapping me at inopportune moments.

I am still here and more-or-less alive, despite being told that my life is worthless, pointless.  Most days I believe it myself.  But I’m still here.  I think it might be out of spite.

I am working on becoming…myself.  On doing what I want, because I want to.  After 20 years of catering to other people, of bearing their burdens and stumbling along, I am beginning to see that it’s not doing anyone any good.  Least of all, me. 

Even though I barely know what I want.  Even though I have almost no sense of self.  I think I’m getting ready to fly.

I am trying to do this with without anger or resentment.  But I am beginning to wonder if that is possible.  Is it wrong to be angry about something in the past?  Anger will solve nothing, but at the same time, I am tired of being invalidated.  Perhaps anger is useless, but it’s there.  It’s what I feel.

I’m pissed off that I managed to get through 25 years with no self-esteem.  That my parents wouldn’t pay for things like fruits and vegetables, but had no problem finding money for cigarettes and, in the case of my father, alcohol. 

I’m angry that I stopped taking my medication regularly for FIVE YEARS, and I was in imminent danger of DYING, and no one gave a shit.  I certainly didn’t.  I was ready to die.  Fuck, I tried, but couldn’t get it right.  I didn’t care about my life, and there was no one  there for me who did.  No one.

I’m angry that I’ve been cutting and otherwise injuring myself since I was 11 years old, and no one cared about that either.  They should have.  Fuck this “personal responsibility” bullshit.  I was 11.  And I was taking a steak knife to my wrists.  I was hurting myself because I didn’t want to fucking inconvenience anyone by having an emotion.

By the time I was 18-years-old and on my own, I was convinced I was completely worthless.  You know what?  I’m pissed off about that, too.

I told myself that I was a bad person for feeling angry about it.  Any of it.  I was being irrational.  Clearly, my family loved me.  Clearly, they cared.  I was just too selfish and pathetic to see it. 

That THEY were selfish never occurred to me.  That maybe they DIDN’T care, and I wasn’t just imagining things.

Someone should have cared.  Someone should have taken care of me, and no one ever did.  Now, I’m incapable of asking for or receiving comfort.  I will suffer in silence, alone, willingly.  Because that’s what they wanted from me, and I didn’t know how to stand up for myself.  I didn’t know how to be anything other than a doormat.

Now, I’m learning.  And oh, god, the rage is hard to bear.  Alone.  Because there’s still no one who cares.  But I’m not going to let that stop me anymore.  I will not be invalidated. 

Because, you know what?  Fuck them.  I am Titanium.

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