Heartbroken Phantom

I sat in the middle of a green field. It was an oasis of ordered countryside, busy with dog walkers and children during the summer holidays, escaping from grey lives for an hour or so. This playing field had the same name as the cigarettes I smoke, the same name as my street, and if I had a house with a name it would probably have the same name as this field. It was summer, late afternoon, and the heat was stifling, concentrated by clouds into an almost unbearable humidity. But I didn't want to leave, didn't want to be around other people. I needed time to think. 'Clinically nice' is what he called me. 'Whenever you do something you don't believe is good or nice, you think you're unlovable and evil. Its a core belief, which means it’s part of your make up, and it'll take a lot of work to change that belief.' That's how my counsellor explained it to me. Robert, he was nice, it’s a shame he couldn't have talked the cause of this out of me....

We all reach moments where certain realisations come to us. This is normal. Time gives us perspective. What time has brought me is the need to purge. Throughout the years, like other human beings who live, i have endured some big things that i should not have, some small things that make you cringe to look back, and most of all, enough fuel to hate myself for all eternity. This is the reality i accepted for myself. But my ultimate realisation in the here and now, is that i have punished myself over and over throughout the years for things i could not help, alter, or fix, that were not mine to fix. I have lived with the history of others in my head and heart, have accepted negativity into my veins like a drug, so that i could hide from life and the things that scare me. Here are some of the things that scare me. Firstly is myself, what if i really am like the history that should not be repeated? What if i am really as cruel or damaged or prejudiced as those who came before me? What if...