Eww

I have recently realized that I have what could possibly be considered the lowest self esteem known to mankind.

This is an unfortunate thing to discover, especially when it follows a long line of other unpleasant discoveries, such as the amount to which I loathe my Grandma B and the fact that I haven't been able to feel angry or to actually cry because I'm truly sad for years.

I started to wonder, a few weeks ago, when the anxiety got real bad again, why I was made this way. I thought for a long time, and finally came to the conclusion that I really need therapy. So that's what I'm doing now. Therapy.

My counselor, Darla, says that journaling (and by this she doesn't mean starting a diary and making it into the beginnings of a new novel as I usually do) can help a person come to heart of their problems, and mine is self esteem.

I suck as a human being. I can tell you that and feel in my heart that it is true. No one seems to understand this when I tell them so in person, but it's true.

I know I am a disappointment, a failure, and idiot. I may not have proven it to the world yet, but it's coming. I know that one day all the people who love me will realize this and do what they should by all estimation have done when Baby Laura was placed in her little hospital crib in front of the big nursery window at the hospital: they'll see who I am and run away from the demon they once thought they had known.

I hate myself for many reasons, most of which would cause my friends to laugh. "How can anyone think they deserve only bad things to happen to them, really?" they would laugh. "She must be joking." But I'm not. That means no one should laugh.

I must be some kind of a liar, since everyone seems to think I'm smart, talented, successful. I should be a criminal, if I can get so many people fooled. Or a lawyer, a polition, an actress, something that utilizes my real talents. If I can't be me in front of anyone, why shouldn't I just embrace it?

"Why would anyone give me a job doing anything?" I keep asking myself. It's no wonder I do terribly in interviews for jobs. If I wouldn't hire me, why would I think anyone else would?
When I was born, someone somewhere slapped me with an "Ugly" sticker, the mark that makes all other people recognize the freaks of nature in the world and leads to the natural avoidance we all have for the crazed, the unclean, the flawed. My classmates in elementary, junior high, high school, and even college have seen this mark and run from it. And who could blame them? They avoided lepers for a reason, back in the middle ages, and that reason applies today. I was taken from my plastic baby hospital prison and placed in a different one from the babies called Stephanie, Julia, Elizabeth. Good old Laura was placed with the other gremlin babies, seperated from the herd. And I don't blame anyone for doing it.

I am trying so hard to convince myself that I have friends who care about me, no matter what, but it isn't working. Some days I look up at the ceiling when I wake up in the morining and say, "Well, I'm not dead yet," and feel cheated, dissapointed. The way I see it, I can't fix the problems I have or the world has with me, so why bother making everyone wish I was different? Why not just give in?

I can remember, in a dress fitting once, somone told me I was pretty. I couldn't believe they were saying it. I had to keep saying, "It's the dress, it would look pretty on anyone," and I kept highlighting the physical flaws I couldn't stop seeing. When I left, I had decided that they didn't mean my face, just everything from the neck down, and only that because of what the dress was doing to help things out. I went home from the shop wishing no one had said anything about me or the dress and prayed that my cousin wouldn't put me in the front of any wedding pictures.

Now that I'm a little older, I don't even believe that. I now think that the woman was just trying to earn her commission.

I keep thinking, "Why on earth would anyone in their right mind bother to date me?" I know I don't deserve anyone's attention, and the idea of someone giving me any time which they could spend doing something more interesting or productive makes me feel a little sorry for the people who think they have to settle for me. I don't deserve it. I wish I could pretend I did. This is why I never dated anyone. I only am starting to now because I seem to have found the one nice guy in the entire world, and it would be a shame to give up entirely on happiness, even the momentary kind.

The therapist has her work cut out for her, is all I can say.

And all of this comes up just because I tried today. I actually tried to be pretty, stylish, classy. And I really don't think it worked. I mean, it was better than the norm, but not really. I was what I always am, just another face in the crowd of humanity.

And I know people will think, "What is this?" when they read this blog, but these are the thoughts that live in my brain. If you know a way to get them out, I'd love to hear about it.