How it is

If I really think about it, I have been struggling for a long time.

The summer before I started college, I was convinced I was dying of some unknown disease and ran a low grade fever the whole summer.

The summer before my sophomore year in college, I was recovering from mono, and plunging into a second round of restrictive anorexia/exercise induced bulimia.

Spring break during my senior year, I took a trip to Jamaica with a group of friends. I was so depressed, I did not participate in most group activities and spent the better part of the week by myself.

The summer before law school, I decided that getting a job was not worthwhile and that it would be better preparation for me to stay home and watch Law & Order reruns -- all day long -- and to eat anytime anyone said "objection". I gained 30 pounds, and even my mother was telling me I should eat less.

The summer before my third year, I developed a pre-ulcerous condition, which is pretty much an ulcer just slightly easier to treat because there isn't yet a hole in your stomach, just a lot of fraying of the stomach lining in one particular place. Either way, it still hurts, and either way, you still have to take a rigorous course of antibiotics for the better part of 6 weeks. Not to mention, I think I was having a low grade panic attack all summer because I was consistently short of breath.

After law school, my eating and exercise habits were likely not the healthiest. Okay, they weren't at all. I was very restrictive with my diet and rigorous with regard to my exercise in an effort to control a life I felt was spinning out of control. This continued for about 4 years. The last two years, I have alternated being controlling and being absolutely profligate when it comes to my eating and exercise habits. Resultantly, I have felt completely out of control most times.

We won't even mention my various panic attacks brought on in moments of emotional devastation. Some people get broken up with and go get drunk with their friends, I proceed to feel like I am having a heart attack and go to the ER, where once I am told I am not dying, I promptly feel better.

In the last couple years, I have also taken to "hiding" when I feel low. I do the bare minimum of what I must in order to fulfill the obligations in my life -- this is generally going to work and doing all that is required there (because I would do anything to avoid being branded a failure or to let people down in a professional context), then going straight home to bed.

These are the facts, and they are undisputed.

It is easy to believe that, despite all of the evidence to the contrary which I have listed above, through this time I was in denial with regard to my struggles. It isn't true. But I can see how it would be easy to believe, as concurrent with the time line above, I graduated in the top 5% of my high school class at the age of sixteen. I attended what some might argue is the most prestigious undergraduate institution in this country, and graduated with honors (though the dirty little secret is that 90% of the class graduates "with honors" -- you almost have to try not to do so). I attended a top flight law school, and graduated at the tender age of 23, on my way to a six figure job with a preeminent and highly sought BigLaw firm. Miserable though I -- and the economy -- were, we both flourished, surviving layoffs and cutbacks alike. When I thought I had reached the end of the my rope with my first employer, I got a job with an even more prestigious law firm. The job was so horrendous, it nearly killed me, but it certainly was prestigious. And now, I work in a job which is enviable both for its focus and its geographical location. Yes, I am thirty years old, my resume is flawless, and my life is a mess.

These are the facts, and they are undisputed.

As contradictory as my personal struggles and my professional accolades may be, I have been aware of the duality. I have tried to bridge the gap. I have tried talk therapy on numerous occasions -- my senior year in high school, my third year in law school, my fourth and fifth year in law practice. I think it is useful to discuss things with a neutral third party. I was always surprised at what I learned about myself in discussing topics I thought I had already parsed through ad nauseum with my nearest and dearest. But talk therapy is expensive and time consuming, and I have yet to come through the process feeling any sense of closure or accomplishment. To this point, it has been only a panacea. Wary as I was, as I had seen it work for a family member and several friends, I also tried antidepressants for nearly a year. There were a number of positive effects, but they came with negative ones which just didn't seem worth it to me. And the positive just didn't seem genuine, it just seemed to be more disconnect than anything. In addition, I have tried nearly anything else that anyone might suggest. I bought meditation tapes. I bought a blender to make green smoothies and adopt a semi-raw approach to my diet. I even tried to feng shui my room, but to my chagrin, all of my windows in my apartment face the wrong direction, so my chi is all going down the drain or something like that. My mother has long been praying to St. Judas (St. Jude -- the patron saint of lost causes) on my behalf. Admittedly, in the darkest times, I do too. But I think I need to be either most specific or more general with him -- because so far the prayers of "save this failing relationship" and "please just help me" have gone unanswered. Or, quite possibly, I am too ignorant to have seen the proper signs with which they were answered.

These are the facts, and they are undisputed.

I know that all of my problems in my life stem from the fact that I don't like myself very much. I couldn't tell you why. I really, really wish that I could. Honestly, when I look at myself (in the sense of evaluating myself as a person both in appearance and substantively) my viewpoint is very amorphous. It is as though I see myself reflected in a pool of water which is held by a sieve. Any reflection I see is by definition ephemeral. Fleeting glimpses, distorted by ripples and tricks of the light playing on the surface. Distortions -- both kind and unkind. So what do I see? I see someone who is smart. That doesn't really change. I see someone who is funny/amusing (though this often morphs into someone who is dorky/trying too hard/completely esoteric/boring). I see someone who wants to be a good person, to be generous, kind and giving, but who realistically allows her inner demons and her selfishness and narcissism to oftentimes keep her from being that good person. I see someone who has the capacity to present as attractive, but who also has the capacity for appearing ugly, and she slips between the two at will. Somehow, when I am in the ugly phase, it seems intolerable to have people see me (so again with the hiding). So I guess I need to add profound vanity to my list of what I see. I see someone who really desperately wants to be grateful and appreciative for the blessings in her life, and who hates herself more every day for her lack of gratitude and her ridiculous grousing and persistent and inexplicable whining. I see someone who has been driven by guilt and fear and and anxiety her whole life. It has allowed her to be a "successful" professional, but I think it has made her a failure personally. This is the one problem that the drive of fear, anxiety, and guilt can't fix. They are the problem.

I am not perfect. No one expects me to be perfect. Well, one person does. I do. Actually, I don't even expect myself to be perfect. I have always said so, and I have believed it. Really. Perfect is unrealistic. So pragmatic as I am, apparently I just expect myself to be able to put up a passable facade of perfect. I feel I am so flawed, I can only be loved if I can do it better than the rest. But a facade isn't even doing it, so what am I doing?

I really would like one day where I woke up and I was so pleased to be me, so happy with what I saw in the mirror, with the person I am in my mind. Where I didn't want for anything.

I don't know how to get there. I have been so sad lately because I feel like I have run out of options. Short of moving so that maybe I can do the feng shui thing right, I just don't know that there is anything left for me to try to make myself feel better. Inevitably, as I ride out the wave of my own struggles, things always get better. Never fails. But I am just so tired of heading back down this road time and again. It is an ugly place, a lonely place. A place where you are your own worst enemy. A perennial victim of "friendly fire" -- which doesn't make it any less dangerous or the wounds any less deep.

I do not know why I dislike myself so much. Maybe if I can figure out where my relationship with myself soured, I can broker some kind of peace agreement. That could be the something new I haven't tried yet. It is worth looking into. We shall see.

Otherwise, I am going to have to move so my windows are facing east.

These are the facts, and they are undisputed.