Hate Yourself Less

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• April 23, 2023

It doesn’t even take that much to hate yourself less. It’s just that pesky Doubt Demon keeps jumping in the front seat and taking the wheel.

Write more. Hate yourself less. Hustle. Work. Hate yourself less. But don’t sacrifice your social life too much. No one ever said this was going to be easy. You’re not old get, but you’re not young anymore. Things are okay, aren’t they?

Yes, yes. Okay. Indeed. But this is not enough. It was never going to be. There are plates spinning. There are deadlines. There is work to be done. True enough, most of those plates fall to nothing. I’m just stepping on the shards of glass of opportunities that didn’t come to fruition. Futile as it seems to keep grinding your gears to ‘make it,’ you’ll hate yourself if you don’t.

I fell behind. I should have had more done by now. I could have had more done by now.

Look, you can’t keep on being mad at yourself about your lack of productivity during your mental hiccup. Is that what this is about?

Hiccup?

Yeah, hiccup.

That’s an adorable and generous term. Maybe I’m not mad at myself for the spiral. The triggers were out of my control and they just kept coming. Life kept punching me down when I tried to pick myself up. Anyone would have snapped under the same circumstances. Well… almost anyone.

It had been sometime since you slipped to the bottom of the well.

I tried so hard to forget.

But it wasn’t as bad as before, was it?

It wasn’t like before, no.  The song of suicide didn’t become stuck in my skull. It drifted by me, but it couldn’t penetrate me.

See? There can be silver linings in a psychotic break.

Ha. I suppose some sort of growth has taken place in my 30s. The walls of the well are no longer razor blades. They are slippery. But it’s climbable. I knew I was going to climb out.

You did. Like fucking Spider Man. But what’s the first thing you did.

Stopped taking my meds and went on a bender.

And you regret this?

What is life but regrets? I was having fun. Sure, I edged on reckless but my god, how good it feels to feel alive again after falling down the well. Can I not just enjoy being a maniac from time to time?

You do. Live your life, kid, you know I wouldn’t stop you. I’m right there with you. But these plates aren’t going to spin themselves. There is work to be done. There are steps we have to take.

I’ve been taking the fucking steps, yeah? But it’s Escher’s steps. A sick labyrinth that’s just up and down and back where we started. And that fucking Doubt Demon is faster than me. He jumps around. He grabs the wheel. Steers my ship. I’d like to wring my hands around his neck.

You know as well as I, it’s near impossible to kill off parts of yourself. Especially the demons. We must love every part of ourselves.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve heard it in therapy. I’ve made incredible strides to nurture my inner wounded child but the Doubt Demon? Fuck that little fuck. How can you learn to love a voice in your head that diminishes your self worth?

If if makes you feel better, I think almost every writer and artists arm wrestles the Doubt Demon.

It doesn’t make me feel better. It doesn’t make me feel better knowing I’m not alone in the tortured artist sense. Because too many people I love are tortured and I hate to see them struggle. They fail to see how great they are.

And isn’t there something sweet in that? How artists platform and support each other when the industry and world ignore them.

I mean… I guess? If I’m practicing optimism. But optimism doesn’t come naturally for me— I have to work at it.

So what else. What else is it that gives you pause in the morning before starting in on your day. Besides your god awful sleep habits. Trying to fix your family. And your high functioning alcoholism.

I’ve let myself down. I’ve let other people down. People really believed in me. I should have more things figured out. I should have more screenplays and more pitches. The more pitches I have the better chance… and maybe… listen to my self pity tale of woe. It’s pathetic. Simply pathetic. I can’t stand it. It just feels like, I’m never enough. And what’s just as much, the world isn’t enough for me either. I’m not satisfied with what I have work wise. I want to be better. I need to be better. And relationships are just as much a labyrinth of both not meeting others needs and others not meeting mine. Furthermore, I really need money.

What is it you always say? That no one has anything figured out. We’re all just making it up as we go along.

That’s just life, isn’t it? So much disappointment.

It is. No one really prepares you for how disappointing life is going to be. But what are you going to do? Tell a child that being an adult is mostly chores? That love can run its course? That there’s a possibility your brain will unevenly distribute serotonin and you’ll lose it sometimes for no reason, sometimes for reason?

Sometimes I forget that I’d be my teenage hero right now. She would hardly believe it. The stand-up accomplishments. Pitching scripts to Hollywood. Living in the city as a writer. All the shows, museums and art I check out. The places I’ve traveled to. It was my dream to consume and create art as much as possible. Sure enough, I’m am living a younger Lori’s dream. It still feels like something is missing.

You’re lonely.

Don’t give me that. Everyone is lonely. Single people are lonely. Married people are lonely. We live in a world where we’re shit at communication and social media just makes it worse because too many people don’t have an honest relationship with themselves. Yes, I’m lonely. But who isn’t part of the St. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band?

How can one be lonely when they have so much going on in their head?

Hilarious. It is entertaining up here when it isn’t maddening.

What are we going to do?

The only thing we know how. Pick up the sword and shield and fight for our life. Pick up the pen and write stories. Pick up a drink and laugh with friends. It isn’t such a bad life. In fact, there are times I know it’s a great life. Everything comes and goes in waves. Especially the actual waves. For fucks sake, I just want to go surfing.

It’s going to be a fun summer.

I always know how to have a fun summer, Queen. I slay summer. I think I just want someone to tell me it’s going to be okay. And I want to believe them. Deep down. I want to really believe it.

That sounds like a You problem.

It’s an Us problem. You and me. More than other voices up here. Half of them are out of control. Especially thirsty Lori. She’s has the hormones of a teenage boy right now, it’s fucking wild.

It seems a bit cruel that the creator of this simulation made guys horny as fuck when they are young and they made women horny as fuck in their mid thirties.

Yeah, what kind a of mental creator thought that was a good idea.

If there are gods, we must accept they may be as flawed as we are.

Oh, embroider it on a fucking pillow, why don’t ya. So. Answer it. Do you think we’re going to be okay?

We are right now. But we won’t always be. I cannot lie.

Yes. Peacetime doesn’t last. But neither does wartime. Balance. Perhaps the only thing I can do is what I am really good at… write stories about the peace, write stories about the violence, and everything that comes in-between. Especially the funny shit.

Rock n Roll, kid! Drugs, sex and New York City. Don’t forget, you don’t just consume the culture, you earned your way of becoming the culture. We’re pretty fucking badass.

When we’re not scared.

No, no. Especially when we’re scared. Nothing is more courageous than continuing even when you’re scared.