Well, if that isn't the most accurate phrase to describe who I am today.
I'm a mess.
I have good days and bad days.
I tell it like it is; I am honest to a fault.
I'm sarcastic and whitty (mostly sarcastic). I like to use puns and also say things like, "you da bomb dot com" because I think I'm cool.
But, I also have a good heart. I tell people that I care and I show it. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I cry about things that some people wouldn't; if something happens to someone I care about, I cry for them because I can imagine how much that must hurt them.
Some would say I am an empath.
I don't know if that is what I would call it; I tend to say I am sensitive.
However, I also have a no-bullshit side to me. Because, well, a bull-shitter knows when they are being bull-shitted. This works particularly well in the psychiatry field.
When someone looks me in the face and says I'm fine, I can tell if they are lying. If someone looks me dead in the face and says I have not used drugs, I can tell they are lying. (Plus, I also have a lovely urine specimen cup that can tell me that my bullshit detector is correct about that one.)
That intuition, as I call it, comes from life experience; both being a bull-shitter and also being around quite a few in my life. I tend to attract these kind of people. I have dated a couple (unfortunately). Although these experiences were unpleasant, they taught me to learn to read people very well; to pay attention to body language, inconsistency, and to trust my gut feeling. Usually my gut is right.
Also, I have lied to my fair share of people about many things in my life. Surprise, I wasn't always a great person like I am today.
I told people that I loved them when I didn't. I lied about where I was to my parents and significant others. I cheated on a pretty nice and undeserving person when I was younger. Among many other terrible things. I made mistakes like everyone else. I am not perfect.
I do believe that our past mistakes and terrible things that happen to us in our lives form us into who we are today.
Like a butterfly, we morph into something beautiful after turning into something that pretty gross and ugly.
I was a pretty terrible person once upon a time. Because if I was the one doing the hurting, I couldn't get hurt. Right?
Wrong.
Unfortunately, I have been hurt by some people I trusted and loved (friends and past significant others) and also someone who was a stranger.
But, that damaged person and those truly terrible experiences taught me something important.
No matter what I have done in the past or the shitty decisions I made, I never deserved to be hurt. I didn't deserve to be made to feel worthless, stupid, fat, ugly, or anything else. I already hated myself. I didn't need someone else to make me hate myself more, but you did.
I finally realized recently that I hated myself so much because I was holding onto something that hurt me so bad.
I had to let that shit go. I had to grieve for that part of me that I lost all those years ago. For all the years I wasted being angry about it.
Once I did that, I became a new version of myself.
I am not hiding behind anyone.
I am not ashamed of my past.
I am proud of how far I have come.
I will never be perfect.
But, I am unapologetically me.