Why no writing?

It has been nearly a year since I wrote anything on this blog.  Here is the last post that I started and never finished:

OK, I have been on hiatus for a long time. There has been a reason for this. It is because I hate myself.

Sorry. That is, perhaps, an overstatement. But any time I thought about posting, the thought soon came to my mind "who wants to read what you have to say?" Which kind of put a damper on my motivation.

I'm sad that I recognized this feeling a year ago and yet didn't see that it was something that I needed to work on to get past or to overcome. That's part of the problem of self-hatred; I assume that it is justified and just the way it is.  I thought that my self-loathing was something that I had dealt with fifteen years ago.  But I guess like many personality flaws or emotional issues or whatever, there are layers.

I did do something about it recently. I got some prayer for it. And I realized something: self hatred is a coping mechanism. It is a way of dealing with big scary feelings in a way that seems safer to me.  Like depression, which is what I used to run to instead of get angry in general, self hatred is something that I turn to when I want to avoid getting angry at other people. People ignore me, treat me like crap, walk all over me, don't answer my emails, don't laugh at my jokes?  Well, getting angry at them is just petty, so I don't want to do that.  But I'm still angry! Where do I put this emotion?  I'll just turn it toward myself!  "Why should they answer your emails/treat you nice/send you flowers and candy? You're not worth it anyway!" Something like that.  Makes the world make sense without me having to deal with blaming other people for anything.

But, like all ungodly ways of dealing with pain, this coping mechanism gets in the way of the truth.  And whether I am the best blogger in the world or just one of the crowd, it is wrong for me to totally despise what is in me.  There is good stuff in me, stuff that it is good to express.  Acting as if there isn't gets in the way of the Spirit.

This isn't a promise to start posting again. Not sure what will happen on that front.  It is just an explanation for why I stopped.