Stupid Piece of Shit

    If you’ve read my about page, you’ve probably guessed that I quite enjoy the Netflix original series Bojack Horseman. Netflix blessed us this month with the newest season of the adult cartoon, and I am enamored. In this season, there is an episode aptly titled “Stupid Piece of Shit.” The episode begins with a voice over of Bojack’s thoughts: “Piece of shit. Stupid piece of shit. You’re a real stupid piece of shit.” The rest of the episode continues to have this voice over of Bojack’s self-hating thoughts.

This episode connected with me in a way that made me want to call up my therapist. The inner voice that tells Bojack he is a “stupid piece of shit” and that, as is revealed later in the episode, tells another character everyone hates her and “they’re not wrong to feel that way,” felt so much like the inner voice that tells me eerily similar things. Watching this episode, I felt a little too in tune with Bojack. If you’ve seen the show, you know why that’s a problem.

    I often find myself thinking those thoughts. “You’re a stupid piece of shit. You’re so worthless. Everyone would be better off without you.” Some days I can fight those thoughts. Some days I tell someone I love I’m having thoughts like that and they help me fight it. Some days I just stew in self hatred and suicidal ideation.

    It’s strange, this voice in our minds. I understand probably not everyone has this voice, or at the very least not everyone’s is so cruel. If you’re one of those who is lucky enough to have a not-so-cruel inner voice, or even a nice one, please take a moment to appreciate it. While you’re at it, take a moment to appreciate your nose not being stuffed up, too. In fact, take a moment and appreciate all the good things your body is doing for you right now.

    For the rest of us, it is a daily battle to even just function normally around these thoughts and the self-harming actions that come with them. Get those images of razor blades out of your mind, self harm can be so much more complex and subtle than cutting. It can be as non-physical as simply sabotaging your own endeavors.

    That’s the kind I suffer from.

    I get a little too happy, a little too healthy, a little too close to being even sort of successful at something, and I find myself sabotaging that positivity. Sometimes I wonder if I’m afraid of success, and I think how ridiculous that is. Afraid of success? Isn’t succeeding what we are all striving for?
    But it isn’t about the success. It’s about the failure. To succeed in any capacity one must first fail, learn, and grow. You fall learning to walk, you mispronounce words when you’re learning a language, you make mistakes (fail) along the path to mastering any skill. This makes success rather daunting. Not only must you put in a lot of work and effort, but you must also fail.

    This is where the fear comes in. Now your subconscious is running with this. “Failure? Oh no, no, I don’t want to be a failure. I want to be seen as perfect and good. If I try to succeed, I may find that I am hopelessly bad at whatever it is I’m trying to do. I may fail and become a failure. So, instead, I should not try at all or subtly sabotage myself so that when I fail it’s not because I’m bad, it’s because I didn’t try. Then I will still be seen as perfect and good.”

    This, while ruining whatever it is you’re trying to do along with your day, is also horrible logic. It may feel like less of a moral judgement if you fail because you didn’t try, but the truth is that not trying is the worst failure of them all. Not trying robs you of any chance of succeeding at all. It robs you of any chance at the happiness and fulfillment you are searching for. It feeds the beast that is telling you that you’re a stupid piece of shit. If you try, you have a chance to succeed. You may still fail, but at least you have a chance of succeeding.

    But not trying is the comfortable failure. It’s the status quo failure. By not trying, you not only feel like you have less moral judgement on you -how can you be a failure at something you haven’t done?- but you also don’t shake up the way things are. You stay in your comfort zone, in the familiar place that you already are, where you keep on doing what you’ve always done. To try is to disrupt the status quo, and to disrupt the status quo is to be uncomfortable.

    To fail because you tried is to be uncomfortable, to be a failure, is to fall farther and harder because you climbed up higher than you’ve ever been. To fail because you didn’t try is to be comfortable, apathetic, and to fall not far at all, because you never climbed.

    So that little voice says you ought to sabotage yourself and save yourself the pain. But you’re preventing yourself from finding the happiness you deserve.

    That is why I say self-sabotage is a form of self harm, as worthy of a therapist’s attention as cutting. That’s also why I fight so hard to go against that little voice in my head.

    At the end of the “Stupid Piece of Shit” episode, the other character tells Bojack about her own little voice. She asks, hopeful, if that voice will go away. If that voice is just part of being young. Bojack tells her that yes, it goes away, in the hopes of making her feel better. But as we pan away from his face, we know the truth. That voice doesn’t go away. You have to listen to it telling you its nasty lies forever.

    I know that’s a pretty depressing note to end on, so have this: It may not go away, but it can get quieter, and you don’t have to believe what it says. Fight it. Get help. Talk to those you love and trust. Don’t listen to that voice. If we do all that, maybe someday we’ll start trying and actually succeed.

Good luck, dear reader.