So you’re damaged goods? Please go to therapy

PSA: This article contains some tough love and may not be suited for the faint of heart. Read at your own risk. Author will not be held responsible for hurt feelings.

I used to hear the phrase ‘I’m damaged goods’ being thrown around a lot by men who wanted to seem mysterious, alluring and brooding to attract women and to get away with being complete douchebags, because apparently women have a tendency to like broken men because they think they can fix them (LOL), when in reality they were about as damaged as a Nokia 3310. Not a scratch on them and dull as a door knob.

Dear men, kindly stop misusing the word damaged, its very offensive to the those who are ACTUALLY damaged goods. It doesn’t qualify as bragging rights so stop. Being damaged goods is not pleasant. Another word for damaged goods, that doesn’t sound as appealing, is emotionally damaged, which in all honestly is the more correct description.

The most frustrating thing about this is that the damaged have accepted wholeheartedly that they have issues, that they are just a ticking time bomb and everyone should stay far, far away. If you are one of these people, please, for the love of all that is good and pure in this God forsaken universe, GET SOME FUCKING HELP.

Living in a state of pain, hurt, anger, guilt and low self esteem isn’t healthy whatsoever, no matter what the books, series and the movies of our generation would have you believe. Alienating everyone around you by treating them like trash, doubting you’ll ever be happy again, having trust issues and a pessimistic outlook on life is not a way to live. That’s a way to slowly kill yourself, because you’re chipping away, little by little, at your life and the possibility that it could be better.

Yes, you were hurt, disappointed, traumatised even, had your heart and soul stomped on and put in a blender. It’s difficult and downright shattering, no doubt about it, and I’m not here to belittle it or make it seem as if it wasn’t gut wrenchingly painful and you’re not wounded and bruised but are you just going to sit there and let it run your entire life? Do you want your life to be defined by anguish and suffering without relief? To let every action and choice be dictated by it? To rip away any chance of future happiness?

That is the highest form of weakness, no offence.

Get up and do something about it! Life is too short to be living in misery when there are options to put an end to it. Therapy is there for a reason. There are actual trained professionals whose job it is to guide you to being a better person and to help you navigate the treacherous waters of your emotional damage. Seeking help isn’t a weakness, not seeking it is because it shows you’re not strong enough to face your problems head on to try and heal yourself. You want to spend money on something that will help ease the pain, put down the drugs and alcohol and spend it on a therapist; at least the effects will be longer lasting and won’t fuck up your internal organs.

The hardest thing you’ll ever do in your life is work on bettering yourself for the sake of your own wellbeing. To take the step forward and say you will no longer continue to suffer and improve your mental state. Heal yourself so you can be happy, heal yourself so you can thrive, heal yourself so you can attack life with your new found knowledge that will keep you from making the same mistakes. Everything you have gone through will serve as a lesson; a lesson on what not to do and what to do differently. Experience is the best teacher, the unfortunate fact of life is that the best lessons, the ones that serve as foundations and guiding posts, are often the ones that wound us the deepest.

You have no idea how much life you are missing by wallowing in your misery, wake the fuck up.

It will be extremely hard, you will definitely stumble. There will be days where you can’t bring yourself to continue, where it will seem so simple and safe to fall back into your old self destructive routine because healing requires too much effort. When that little dark voice in your head starts whispering those tantalising words, you’ll have to make the choice between what is right and what is easy (Thank you Albus Dumbledore for the wisdom). Doing what is easy will not benefit you in the long run, nor will giving up on self improvement because it’s not all comforting words and hugs.

Will it be torturous to begin with? Absolutely. All therapy is. Who wants to confront their own inadequacies? Who wants to admit their failures? Who wants to admit their deepest and darkest fear?

Answer: not even fucking Batman himself.

You will have to confront some uncomfortable truths about yourself, discover things about yourself that you will not like at all but it will be worth it because you will discover who you truly are, to the depths of your soul, your inner most demons will be summoned forth to do battle with.

Working on yourself will take time, it doesn’t magically happen after one therapy session, unless your therapist is Professor Xavier and he just erases your mind. Just take it day by day, little by little. Set small goals. Subscribe to the 1% rule of self improvement; if you do 1% consistently every day, you can build to tremendous improvements, and over time can make a big difference. Your brain is used a certain routine, it will get confused and it will take a while to adjust. Beware, excuses will come up then because you’re used to doing things in a certain way, don’t give in.

Don’t let life pass you by while you’re having a solo extended pity party. You’ll end up a shrivelled, twisted, regret filled shell of a human being and that the worst possible fate a person can endure, death would be kinder. Remember, just because you’ve gone through a hard time does not give you an free pass to be a despicable person. Don’t take out your unprocessed suffering on innocents who have done nothing to deserve it. So for your own sake, start healing.