I'm hooked on Top Chef. I've been devouring the All Stars season, spending much time rehashing it and analyzing it with the similarly-afflicted fans.
I have a new favorite. I love Richard Blais. I love him for all the wrong reasons. I love him because in him I see a larger-than-life version of my own problems. The guy is amazing. He clearly has an exceptional talent. Everyone around him points this out. But he hates everything he does. He came right out and said it.
So, while somewhere big beautiful brains are winning at a convergence of warlocks and Charlie Sheen, there's surely an opposite place. A place for the Richard Blaises of the world. It's that meeting where I would probably feel right at home. While the warlocks are on a drug called Charlie Sheen, we would be trying to withdraw from self-loathing.
It's a particularly nasty little demon. On more than one occasion, I was certain that I'd tamed it. It lost its grip over me. I'd extinguished - if we can forgive one last Charlie Sheenism, as this is supposed to be about my kinship with Blais - its fire-breathing fists. Then - quite literally for me - on some idle Tuesday it was back. Pinning me to the couch. Sapping my energy. Making me lethargic and sad and scared.
I hate this shit. There's really no way to wax eloquent about this problem. I've picked myself apart, and tried to explain to every person I love, and who loves me back. And none of them get it. They just say I'm being hard on myself. Then, I explain to my therapist, who concedes that it is frustrating for me to feel misunderstood, but really - I need to start focusing on the full side of the glass. Then, I went to my M.D. and in almost the very words of the shrink, she said the same thing. Stop being so hard on yourself.
There is perhaps one person in the entire world who would sit down with me over some ridiculous plate of food, and say that he got it. But, even if I did eat with Richard Blais, it would probably be his food. And he would say he hated it.
And I would look at him like he was insane, and tell him he was being too hard on himself.
I guess the task now is to just ease up.
2 comments:
Unless you know why you loathe yourself and can work on that root issue, its true. You can only treat the symptoms.
Not that it can compare to what actually goes on in that extraordinary brain and heart of yours, but I think I get it. I am on the self-loathing bus, too...though there's actual reason for my self-loathing. ;P
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