Self-Hate: Sorrow Without Solace

A narrative, loosely based on an adolescent struggle with self-hate.

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Today is one of those days.

Those days where you regret waking up, simply wishing that you could sleep infinitely.

Those days where, as you trudge past your mirror, you keep your vision fixated on the ground.

You dread looking up and seeing the thing you despise most.

Which, in your case, is you.

You hate yourself.

Society at large has told you that you are a terrifying creature. Every breath you take makes the world fear for their lives.

Your parents — who suffer subconsciously from the same disease that you do — told you that people who look like you are lazy, and uneducated, and impoverished, and inevitably end up imprisoned.

The entertainment industry told you that you are not pretty enough to be a star on television, or in film, or on the front of a magazine.

When you went to school, your classmates and colleagues harassed you with hideous jokes about you being invisible at night, and your complexion looking “burnt.”

Seemingly, on a daily basis, you were reminded that you didn’t belong here.

Your fledgling psyche internalized everything.

And you began to hate yourself.

As a result of all this internalization, you regarded yourself — your Blackness — as terrifying.

And poor.

And ugly.

And vain.

And “burnt.”

Your hatred of being yourself — of being Black — somehow morphed into your desire to be someone else.

Someone white.

You tried to justify such a drastic sentiment…with, admittedly, less than convincing reasoning.

“White is the opposite of black.”

So if black is terrifying, white must be friendly.

If black is poverty, white must be wealth.

And if black is ugly, white must be beautiful.

— Yes, you are aware of how unreasonable you sound, but…well, this is how your world has taught you to think.

As a result of your self-hate, and in an effort to become that “someone else,” you rejected yourself.

You forsook your Nigerian heritage.

You mocked your own skin.

You shunned your people.

You joined your colleagues in making those disgusting jokes about those tired stereotypes.

(Ironically, these were the same people who were the catalysts of your self-hate.)

And you vehemently refused to court the women of your race —

— sad, considering the fact that, up until now, they remained the only girls that ever displayed even a modicum of romantic interest in you.

No — you reserved your affection exclusively for the fair-skinned. You thought that they were the ultimate gateway to becoming that “someone else.” You thought that your literal, physical, social proximity to them — their whiteness — had placed you in their good graces.

Keyword: “thought.”

Because today, as you dejectedly and hesitantly bring yourself to look in the mirror, your reflection — your reality — slaps you out of your imagination.

Your tap-dancing has gained you nothing.

You are still as dark as the night.

You still think you’re ugly.

You still hate yourself.

And on days like these, knowing that there’s little solace to be found by going to school — that cesspool of hate — you resort to climbing back into bed, hoping that your dreams are less sorrowful.

Featured image by Tsoku Maela