Perfect

If you follow me on Twitter or if you're one of my Facebook friends, you know how much I love this song. I've included the clean version here because some followers of this blog may or may not be offended by the uncut version. Both of my personalities like this clean version, but on the other hand, we both feel the uncut version.

I was watching a Tivo'd episode of Oprah recently and she said something that I have always said to people, but just not as eloquently as she. She said that we "teach what we most need to learn." My sister and I have conversations to that effect all the time. I do it all the time right here on this blog. It's easy for me to tell you what to do to feel good about yourselves. It's easy to drill into your heads that your are perfect just the way you are. It's easy because I know, logically, how this thing called life is supposed to be done. What's not easy is doing it. The phrase "easier said than done" applies here.

You know how sometimes when you're talking to your friend about a problem she may have and the solution seems so obvious to you that you can't understand why she can't see it herself? I mean, it's right there in front of her face. Why can't she see it? She sees it. However, it's far less painful to pretend she has no clue than it is to resolve the issue. I don't know about you, but I do that all the time.

Here's the thing: I know me. I'm aware of all my issues. One of the things I know is that my cursing so much is a defense mechanism. It says to people, "That is the wrong woman to mess with. Don't try to take advantage of her or otherwise get on her bad side because things will not go well for you." I know that I developed this defense mechanism as a result of not feeling protected as a child. I had so many horrible things happen to me and I would wonder why no one would come to my defense. No one brought food to my siblings and me when our mother disappeared for days at a time. No one objected when she sold me to a man for drug money. No one stopped the man in the stairwell from trying to rape me when I was six-years-old; I stopped him myself. I kicked and scratched...and I screamed curse words at him...until he let me up off the concrete floor. I knew what he wanted to do to me and I was damned sick of being a victim. At six. That's when I learned that cursing can make people leave you alone. Kicking and scratching don't hurt, either.

I didn't know why my mother didn't love me and the only reason I could think of why God didn't love me was that I was a bad girl. I was bad and that was why bad things always happened to me. That was why God let them happen.

I spent a large portion of my life trying to make up for being bad. I let people take advantage of me and treat me unkindly. I was fully aware of what they were doing, I just wanted to redeem myself in the eyes of God. I had to somehow get back into His good graces. People called me names, I said nothing. Some would physically attack me, I didn't retaliate. Others betrayed me, and though I was hurt, I let them get away with it. You see, I felt I deserved their mistreatment and hatred. Because I was a bad girl. I was a bad person.

Then, one day I got pissed. I tell you today that nothing cures despair like anger. Don't ever let anyone tell you that anger is counterproductive because it definitely is not. All emotions serve a purpose. This post is not about anger, so I will tell you about channeling it properly some other time. Right now I want to tell you about how getting angry repaired my broken spirit. At least that's what I thought at the time.

I thought, "Why the hell don't I deserve to be protected? What makes me so evil that the whole world can dump all over me without consequences?" I didn't remember doing anything that would warrant God's hatred, so I had had enough. I went from the extreme of being a doormat to the extreme of being in constant-anger mode. But again, we'll talk about that in a future post.

Even after I learned to calm myself and be a little more peaceful, I still had this one issue that wouldn't go away: I was fat. It was more than that, though. I would gain weight, be horrified by my reflection in the mirror, then lose weight. Lather, rinse, repeat as needed. I used to think that I had a love/hate relationship with food, as in: I love it, it loves me, and I hate that it loves me so damned much because it has a tendency to stick around long after I'm done savoring its deliciousness. I've realized, later than I would have hoped, that my love/hate relationship is with myself. I absolutely love to hate myself. I've become quite good at it, too. I call myself names, I physically attack myself (in the forms of overeating and other self-abuse), I betray my own sense of self-worth by doing things that make me feel horrible about myself. Does any of this sound familiar?

Why do I do this to myself?

Because somewhere, not so deep down inside myself, I still think I'm a bad girl. I still think I deserve to be mistreated only I've made it clear to others that they can't do it. So who does that leave to treat me like dirt?

Me.

Isn't that something? I've fought most of my life to be respected and here I am disrespecting myself. If you recognize yourself anywhere in this post, let's stop this abuse of ourselves. Let's take a stand against the one person we thought would always have our backs. Let's defend ourselves...against ourselves. Don't defeat yourself before you even begin by saying how hard this is going to be. I'm a firm believer that you can do whatever you think you can do. If you think it's going to be hard, it'll be hard; if you think it's going to be easy, it'll be easy. Let's come up with strategies and game plans as if we were facing our greatest enemy. Let's find ways to cut him off at every pass. Let's be on the offensive. Let's attack before the "enemy" gets a chance to.

I'm going to take my first step today. When I finish this post, I'm going to walk over to my dresser, pick up the bottle of diet pills that I pay $40/month for and I'm going to throw them in the trash. I'm going to continue  on the blood pressure pills I take to counteract the effects of said diet pills, but only for a month. And hopefully, once both medicines are out of my system, I can reclaim the libido that has been lost from taking the blood pressure meds. As you can see, I gave up a lot to my inner enemy; my health, my womanhood. And if that weren't enough, those pills turn you into a raging lunatic. Some of you have benefited from that lunacy on A Bitch Called Mom. I guess we'll have to see if I have any 'bitch' left in me once the diet pills are all gone.

I suspect there's plenty to spare.

"Change the voices in your head. Make them like you instead." ---P!nk

Here's to self-love, self-worth, and self-respect! Please send positive vibes, thoughts, and prayers my way and I will do the same for you.

Until next week,

Feed on love, subsist on peace.