Self-hatred

I have for the longest time understood hatred to be something objectively negative, without any redeeming qualities or possible positive outcomes. Much like how I learned to distinguish at a young age between having 'hunger' and an 'appetite', so too did I learn to separate negative things into things I 'dislike' and those I truly 'hate'. The latter category isn't one I use a lot, much like how I am not often really hungry in a world surrounded by food. Food is too readily available and so are forgiveness and understanding. Truly pure, blind hatred isn't something one should ever commit to, or so I believe.

Yet despite these convictions I found myself yelling at myself last night. At my reflection, to be precise. About how much I hate what I see there in the mirror, about my pure hatred and loathing for having such a despicable body which has seen fit to gift me with just about every possible type of pain one could possibly imagine. Without rhyme or reason I found myself punching and clawing at this shell of flesh, as if to mash it into a pulp and tear away chunks. I was well-aware that this wasn't 'me', but something else taking over my mind and flooding it with the suggestion that I would feel better if only I were to destroy this body. Punish it. Hurt it. Pain it.

I sat on the side of my bed for a while afterwards, just sobbing and alternately hugging and hurting myself depending on which side was more in control. Only when the adrenaline began to fade and exhaustion set in did I relinquish this position and retired to bed. Even then it wasn't all fine, though, as I felt terrified. Scared and startled at every noise. The occasional loud tick from the heating system. The upstairs neighbours walking about. The tinnitus which my body seems to be producing through some kind of biofeedback. When I finally fade into unconsciousness it's a major relief.

As I'm writing this I don't feel like I did during this episode at all. That person was beset by hatred, by destructive urges. I remember feeling this seething hatred inside as I sat there on my bed and the intense pain it caused me. I knew that I couldn't keep living with all of that hatred inside me and no hope for improvement. Now that I'm no longer that person I don't feel hatred at all, more of this usual sense of careful optimism and sadness which seems to make up much of my main personality. I don't feel like I should commit suicide right now. I don't wish to harm myself. Yet I also know that this other 'me' is still there.

Even though I denounced hatred and proclaimed that I do not hate the psychologists, physicians, intersex organization members, politicians and the countless others who have tortured and nearly broken me over the past decade and some, this other part of me doesn't think that way. It hates every single one of them with a burning, raging passion and would gleefully bath in their collective blood. It tortures me to think that a part of or different 'me' can harbour such thoughts, even if I can understand why it would feel that way.

Ultimately feeling all that hatred and being unable to do anything with it is self-destructive. That's why I end up bruising, scratching, cutting and otherwise hurting myself over and over again when I become that other person. Because the hatred has to go somewhere and the only available target is this body which has been at the center of every single interaction which has fed this hatred. It only makes sense to eliminate it as it's clearly part of the problem.

Last night's experience does drive home the point of how time is running out for me in so many ways in finding a medical solution to my intersex condition. Not just because of the agonizing 2-3 weeks of sheer physical pain every month because of my female side going through some hormonal cycle without the proper configuration being in place as a result of me not having a regular body. It's also because of this multiple personality problem which is likely part of my PTSD and affords me a place where to put the emotions and feelings I cannot deal with.

Simply put, if I don't find medical help in the coming years it'll be a race to see whether I'll suffer that mental breakdown or a fun medical complication like sepsis first. Ten years didn't get me medical help. The possibility of finding said help during the next ten or even five years is... slim to zero.

While I do not hate the physicians who are still directly or indirectly torturing me like this, I do not feel a single shred of respect for any of them. Is this truly all that I deserve?


Maya