“Something’s wrong with your brain”: the words that left me eating myself alive
They spoke my deepest fear and I spiralled into terror, anxiety and self-attack.
Someone close to me used to tell me that something was wrong with my brain.
I was horrified and very upset to hear that. I spiralled into self-doubt, confusion and self-attack. I feared that there was something vicious and malicious within me that was out to destroy me. I felt very unsafe within myself and unable to trust myself.
“You’re wrong, you’re wrong,” my head would scream, “There’s nothing wrong with my brain!”
And all the while, there was a part of me that was petrified that they were right. That there was something wrong with my brain. That I was that deficient human being, trapped in a labyrinth with the monster that I was, looking to self-detonate.
I now look back, and hear those words very differently.
And I can see that they were right! There was something wrong with my brain!
But not for the reasons I feared then.
There was something wrong with my brain — for believing thoughts that caused me deep fear, anxiety and pain.
There was something wrong with my brain — for attacking myself and for believing the inherited shame-based stories that said I was fundamentally flawed and broken. Stories–lies–that left me eating myself alive.
There was something wrong with my brain — for tolerating abuse, from myself and others.
There was something wrong with my brain — for not trusting in my inherent goodness.
There was something wrong with my brain — for not questioning my self-abusive thoughts.
There was something wrong with my brain — for believing words that didn’t feel right in my heart.
There was something wrong with my brain — for keeping me looping in my head and preventing me from finding the truth of my heart.
There was something wrong with my brain — for not being myself, for not trusting and speaking my truth, for not loving all of who I was.
Consciousness moves in mysterious ways.
There’s a way in which everything that happens is pointing us back home—to the recognition of our inherent goodness, beauty and truth.
Whenever I hear or think something that’s hurtful now, I ask myself—what’s a different way of hearing those words? What’s a different perspective I could contemplate them from? How may those words be showing me that I am not living from the truth of who I am.
Cover photo by Camel Cazacu on Unsplash