Dermatillomania

The problem is that I’m an addict. I was raised by addicts. I often find myself in the company of fellow addicts. Only my drug of choice is not alcohol, it’s feeling bad about myself — perhaps the most pathetic of habits, but one that is no less real.

My addiction is self-hate and I’m using it to sabotage myself so that I am never, ever happy, because it’s what I feel that I deserve. After all, if I can find a way to view something as always my fault, I am the one who’s actually in control. Not the uncontrollable universe.

I’m addicted to circumnavigating that. I am the Don Quixote of picking at scabs.

I don’t say this lightly or to trivialize addiction (and lord knows I certainly have my other vices), it’s just the facts of the situation. I get drunk on dunking on myself; high on hating who I am. It’s an odd realization because I don’t want to feel this way, but at the same time it’s the only thing that feels logical: to reconfirm time and time again that I am somehow more terrible than the rest. It feels important to dress down any failings as proof of my inherently irredeemable self. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as my mind works overtime to frame the world in this context, slowly turning me into that which I fear most. It’s self-sabotage, and I hate it, but at the same time it feels comfortable and warm. It’s my security blanket, to make everything my…