On Hating Myself
Who knows what to do when you fear self-respect and wallow in regret for lost time?
Every time Joan Didion’s famous 1961 essay “On Self-Respect” makes its way into my life I take it as a divine intervention. I’ve been living in limbo for the past three months not knowing where to go next and not knowing how to put my feelings into words. I’ve been waiting for signs to fall into my lap to guide me but nothing has helped me until I recently reread this essay.
Didion discusses ‘misplaced self-respect’: how rejection can quickly turn one against themselves.
“To live without self-respect is to lie awake some night, beyond the reach of warm milk, phenobarbital, and the sleeping hand on the coverlet, counting up the sins of commission and omission, the trusts betrayed, the promises subtly broken, the gifts irrevocably wasted through sloth or cowardice or carelessness.”
I remember first reading this essay in the summer of 2020 in her collection of essays Slouching Towards Bethlehem. I didn’t think much of it at the time, being an arrogant 18-year-old. I was high on youth, innocence, and desire. I longed for love and saw the light at the end of the pandemic before it got darker. The summer of 2020 was my ‘hot girl summer’. Heartbroken from a man I barely knew, I was desperate for a boyfriend and saw objectifying my body online as the only way to get one, and it worked.
Three years later, I have someone to call my first ex-boyfriend and I hate myself. I hate myself for letting the relationship last months past its expiration date.
I knew my relationship was over months before I even thought of breaking up with him. I dropped him home after a three-day getaway and cried the whole way home because somehow I knew we’d never have another moment like that again. I cried while we held hands in bed because it didn’t feel the same but told him not to worry because they were just happy tears. I convinced myself it was a crash from a dopamine high. But I could feel in my heart that it was over and he didn’t know it. After that day, it took me three months to end our relationship before we got back together three hours later. Then, another five months before I finally had the emotional strength to end it once and for all.
I spent those last eight months of our relationship in fear of heartbreak and embarrassed by a failed relationship. The innocence of hoping my first love would be my only love was gone. But I mostly delayed breaking up because I feared being heartbroken and alone. I feared losing the only person I talked to every day. I feared retreating back to the emotional state of my 18-year-old self who spent a whole summer crying because she didn’t feel like she could ever be loved. The same girl who would post bikini pictures in the middle of winter so a man would pay attention to her.
I watched my friends go through emotional breakups that reminded me of that time. I thanked the stars I wasn’t in their situation because I knew I’d be in the same emotional state as them, maybe worse. I believed I could prevent it since I was making the decision to (not) break up, not him. I thought I could gaslight myself into being happy in the relationship by staying together.
Three months after my breakup, I hate myself for fearing sadness. The truth is, I got over the breakup almost immediately after it happened. I didn’t wake up crying every day like I thought. I didn’t feel lonely or heartbroken. Instead, I felt freed and happy to have grown from something that would’ve destroyed me just three years ago.
I haven’t stopped thinking about the weight being lifted off my shoulders the moment we broke up. I was freed of the burden of my first breakup but was met with a much worse feeling, regret.
Didion says that “people with self-respect have the courage of their mistakes”. Having self-respect would be for me to accept the state of things and move on. To have the courage to accept what happened but not wallow in my failures. Yet, the feeling of embarrassment took over my life. That immediate relief was the moment I lost my self-respect because I knew waiting that long to break up was a mistake. I knew I couldn’t give more to the relationship but I took too long to admit it. I knew what I was doing and hate myself for keeping it a secret from all my friends.
Right after my breakup began my self-proclaimed “asexual era”. I dove into study mode to get through finals and went on a trip to Europe once that was over. I spent a good two months not wanting to think about anything to do with men, resenting myself for how much time I spent with one I no longer loved. My supposed “asexuelness” transcended past sex and into feeling anything emotional at all. I wallowed in my own self-hatred, disappointed in how much I feared self-respect.
This caused my brain to inadvertently shut off. I haven’t written anything or accomplished anything since then because I’ve felt lost. I misplaced my self-respect and lost trust in myself, doubting if any decision I made was out of want or comfort. It was also impossible to write anything about this feeling because I was in the middle of it. I didn’t know how to put it into words.
There are a million ways to talk about heartbreak but no words of encouragement for what to do when you don’t love someone back. You cry because you feel bad and wish you could disappear from this person’s life. It would almost be easier if one of you died, then you wouldn’t have to block them on Instagram. Everyone always says breaking up is the “right thing to do”. But what do you do when you feel more remorse for wasted time than for breaking someone’s heart? Does that make me a bad person? I’m too used to crying over what it could have been. I’m too used to being told I’m not the one. It’s odd to look back at a relationship you know you gave your all to and not have wanted more. Girls aren’t supposed to break hearts.
I’ve been living in a transitional state for weeks now, not knowing what to do with myself. I still feel myself losing self-respect as I grow older and lose my innocence every day. I have one semester left of university and am terrified of the adult world. I don’t want to go back to the emotional state of my 18-year-old self but do wish for her delusion. My innocence which once protected me has been destroyed; How do I know not to repeat my mistakes?
I still don’t have the answers the any of my questions yet. I’m too used to looking forward and planning my life. Not knowing what’s coming next is terrifying to me. I’ve only just stopped hating myself for wasting months in a relationship. I’m only now accepting that I can’t go back in time and end it sooner. I’m trying to find a way to respect myself without being delusional. I sit and remind myself that the beauty of innocence means no longer fearing the unknown.
this is so beautiful eva 💌