baby reindeer

The beauty of the blog is that I get to decide what I want to talk about – whatever gives me inspiration, or ignites a thought/opinion that I want to share. And right now that is the Netflix show Baby Reindeer.
Very long and compelling story, incredibly short: Baby Reindeer is a guy’s autobiographical recount of a stalker situation he found himself in in his 20s. However, what you don’t expect, and what makes it so good, is how unapologetically honest he is about his actions and role in things… almost to a fault. He shares his lowest of low experiences. I thought I knew what rock bottom was from my own experiences until I saw his. He admits things that most people would take to the grave! And I found that so incredibly moving. Because he did some fucked up things and made some fucked up choices. He was fucked up. And many times I feel like I am fucked up. But him owning up to his fucked up reality is so comforting because it makes you realize – oh, everyone is fucked up. And also now there is no way I’m the most fucked up person out there lol.

Toward the end of the series, he has a monologue where he shares every brutal detail of what happened to him with an audience, and how he views himself because of what’s happened to him:

“It’s because I loved one thing in this world more than I did her. Okay, one thing. And do you know what that one thing was? Hating myself.”

That stuck with me. It made me think. Mainly because my therapist thinks I hate myself, or at least thinks I treat and speak to myself in away someone would treat someone they hate. Fair. It doesn’t feel like I hate myself though. But I am constantly so focused on making a better version of myself that it begs the question, which version of myself am I running from? And I think it’s the version that was constantly confirmed she wasn’t good enough. Now I’m bent on getting good enough. But it doesn’t matter how hard I try because I’ll never feel good enough until I get the external validation that I am… Since it’s other people that told me I wasn’t in the first place and prompted my desire to be something else, something better, something accepted.
I’ve always known I hated older versions of myself, but I figured well that’s not me now.
When am I going to realize that girl I resent is me? Every version of myself is still me. Hating her is only proof that another version of me will hate the me I am now… proof that I hate myself.

I’m extremely thankful ‘Baby Reindeer’ shared his story the way he did: in all of its honest, appalling, and traumatic glory. I wish to do that for other people. Make them feel less alone, or less fucked up.

Edit: and in true ironic fashion, after writing this I saw the old me in myself. I was not at all kind to her, I was angry to see her. And I was faced with the reality that the worst things that have ever been said to me, I say to myself.