I was having a discussion with some friends a while ago and someone asked this question:
If you could be anyone, who would you be?
Angelina Jolie popped into my head because, come on, those lips are really amazing. But the last time I counted those lips came with about 8 kids. No thank you. If I could sing like Aretha Franklin I would never speak again. I admire the hell out of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, not just because she is brilliant and funny but because she can put up with Justice Scalia. Ixnay on Courtney Kardashian. Double ixnay on any of Hefner’s Girls Next Door. Christian Amanpour is pretty cool. Definitely not Ann Coulter.
Can I be a hybrid?
Actually there is a correct answer to this question and it finally came to me after my hybrid request was denied. Me. I just want to be me. Seriously. I finally, unequivocally want to be me. Even with the six pounds I gained in the last year and the gray(ing) hair and gravity impaired body parts, I want to be me.
Do you have any idea how amazing this is? After a lifetime of substance abuse, depression and self-loathing, I finally want to be me – all the time. I still have a slew of character defects – like, I want to shout from the mountain top the real age of someone who shaved a few years off a birth date on Facebook. But I won’t because I am not that kind of woman anymore.
When I was depressed I wanted to be anyone but me. When I was hung-over I wanted to be anything but me. Sometimes, when I was depressed AND hung-over I did not want to be at all. I wanted it to be over, once and for all. I just wanted to check out, permanently. A couple of times – when I was in high school and again in college – I even tried suicide. For years I awoke in the middle of the night to a tape playing over and over in my head, “Oh, didn’t you hear? She killed herself. She took a gun…”
These days I rarely hear that tape. When I do every fiber in my psyche screams “NOOOOOOO!” Not only do I want to live, I want to be me – with my extra six pounds, gray(ing) hair and gravity-impaired body parts. I am not at a place where I can say I love myself – not yet. But I do kind of like myself. It’s progress, not perfection, right?
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PsychCentral (October 20, 2009)
I’m afraid I have to disagree. Even though I have episodes of self-loathing, they tend to be circumstantial; in general, I actually quite like myself. However, I am diagnosed with bipolar disorder and borderline personality, as well as clinical depression and anxiety.
I used to perpetually hate myself, but obviously as stated as a general rule I no longer do so. Nevertheless, if anything my mental health has deteriorated recently, so seems mostly unrelated to my views about myself.
Wouldn’t have known any of this working with you back then. You hid it well.
I really like this!
At this point in my (mid)life, I am glad to be me, and I worked pretty hard to get here.
I am still sad about some of the things that came before, but I figure those experiences made me who I am today and I like her.
So, I try to come to terms with the past, mourn it and heal it, but I can’t go back and change it so I must accept it as part of the me that I like today.
I love being me. I think this is the primary state of mind if it weren’t for nuture, culture, families & biology. Once I finally cleaned out the negativity of my thinking, I loved being me. Not because I did anything particularly special or interesting but simply because I am. We all are, and until we can appreciate that mindfully, we will not feel love for self.
I asked my therapist and physician this question about 6 months ago,… “If I need medication to feel better, than who am I really?” I honestly never thought I would get to the point where I could answer this question, until now.
Yesterday (as a matter of fact)I finally felt normal, like myself. It has taken 10 months on medication and nearly losing myself for me to finally say that I am on the right track to being me again. What a wondeful feeling this is!
I am working on liking to be me. With multiple Diagnosis and Dual Dx. I have a hard time figuring out who I am. I take moment by moment decisions now with much more thought- Am I doing this because this make ME happy, or because I think I SHOULD? I don’t believe we ever know who we are- we are changing all the time. Live for this 24 hours.
Last reviewed: 20 Oct 2009
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