From Jane the Virgin I learned about self-sabotage. The romance between Rogelio and Xiomara. I like saying that I have gone through a lot of BS someone my age shouldn’t have. My doctor will say my immature defense mechanism just got tired of trying to bury my ugly past, they simply collapsed and took my body with it.

I hurt. Everyday. I consciously remind myself every single day that I am not the person I once was. The past is in the past. You know.. I can be so much happier now and I can do so much more.

But maybe the past isn’t really in the past. Sure I don’t walk around every day with dark circles under my eyes. I don’t cry in broad daylight. I gave up consciously trying to slit my wrist and I stopped caring who knew how depressed I was. I stopped drinking and crying myself to sleep and I ensured I never got addicted to any getaway.

But maybe despite all that, I am still a product of my past. Whenever I find love in any form, I simply do every single thing in my power to ruin it. I tell myself it’s all a lie. Then when I see it’s real, I go on the trail of convincing myself it’s only going to end in pain like the others. Then when it keeps going on longer than I projected, I tell myself I have to end it because I don’t deserve it, so I act out my worst. And then when it still doesn’t end I simply resign to fate, I can’t get anyone to love me this much so I guess I’ll never really walk away. When it finally gets bad I can’t let go because I am heavily emotionally invested now.

Why do I do everything I can to be sad? Why do I do everything I can to make people hate me? Why do I find love so repulsive and yet so attractive? I know love is what will heal me because, love is what broke me, but I don’t want to be healed. The journey to accepting that I am better than I was is just so hard. The strength to break down all my walls, I’ll rather use to build more walls. I don’t let people hurt me anymore. Good for me. But, now I have to stop hurting myself or no one will ever love me. I bought this bracelet online with inscriptions on it about how awesome I am. I hope that works. Although I doubt it will. It’s all crap.

My doctor advised I look at the world with baby eyes. I should see only beauty, I don’t have a past. I have a blank slate and I can be whoever I want to be. A good version of whoever I once was. Well, that’s the worst advise ever.

If I were to look at the world through baby eyes then I would never know what to do. Granted I have had more bad experiences than good but if I were to let it all go into some defunct memory space then how will I know what to do when old circumstances present themselves in the present? Do I do the opposite of what I once did? Do I do nothing? Or do I go with the flow like I did many years ago? No. Baby eyes don’t help. So what does?

What helps? What really makes it all go away? The past? The pain? They say time. Well, enough time has passed..why does it sometimes feel like yesterday when I was 6 and afraid?