This may come as something of a surprise to those of you who know me more than some and less than most, but I am cripplingly beset with a certain madness, a gnawing voice curled up in my ear. From the comfort of its waxy warm home, the little terror loves to whisper half-truths of my folly. In my own voice I hear it; "I can't" and "I'm not". "I won't". "I don't". It pervades me and persuades me and grows fat on my failure. And so I have come to believe all manner of baseless claims: My skin is bad, my hair a mess, and my body disproportionate. My attempts at conversation are stinted and shallow, and anyone who I might claim as Friend would scarcely reciprocate. I can't cook or wear button-down shirts, and my life is crumbling to disorganized dust in my hands. Anything good I might achieve or obtain, I will doubtless ruin before long. My intelligence is less than it ought to be, besides some small skill with words, and what is that when nothing I have to say would be of any lasting worth? I fear the embraces of more caring souls than myself, for I feel I wear only a thin carapace of confidence and competence. It could crack at any second and my true nature would come spilling out like so much sand.
Insecurity, it's called. And it thrives on the likes of me because it hardly has to lie to be believed. I fully acknowledge that I am not what I should be, I don't work as I was designed to. Something in me is broken and no amount of polish can hide the fracture. Now I know the right way to answer to this voice: I am not as much as I could be, but I am chosen. I am crafted. I am loved. I have been made worthy of more than my component pieces would merit. And yet the voice remains, singing its sweet song of deprecation and setting a splinter in my soul to chafe. Even now, as I confront it, it whispers, "Wow, you must be some kind of sucker to fall pray to such an obvious ploy. What is wrong with you?" Heaven help me, for I cannot escape on my own.
