TheBanyanTree: Doubt

[Monique]

It eats away at me, it threatens to devour me, it causes me to question
everything around me, it makes me suspicious, and wary, and overly cautious.
I can't believe what I'm told, I can't believe who I am, because the doubt
is strong, and inside of me it lies coiled, ready to strike at the slightest
provocation, the merest hint, and when it does strike I can feel it down to
my marrow, it's there, it's within me, and I don't know how to stop it, how
to tame it, how to make myself listen to reason.

When the doubt is there, that's all I know. And I know, when the doubt is
upon me, that I am unworthy, unlikeable, unlovable, an unpleasant blip on
the radar, unnoticeable, and no matter the evidence, it is still what I
know. 

Rational thought goes out the window when the doubt comes in through the
door, and it doesn't make any pretense of sneaking in, it doesn't have to,
it barges in, it makes its way to me without hesitation, without its own
doubt. It knows me, knows my weaknesses, knows how to get to me in the most
effective, the most punishing, the worst ways. It is not difficult for the
doubt.

I will, when the doubt is upon me, push away anyone who tries to get close
because I know that in the end they will push me away, and the best defense
is a strong offense. I will not let anyone in where I am safe in my
knowledge of what I am not. "If only they really knew me," the doubt says,
"they'd push me away even faster, they'd realize what I really am."

The self-defeating prophecy will come to pass if I am not careful. If I do
not stop believing, somehow, that is is right and I am not, that I am
everything the doubt tells me and nothing that I, or anyone else, tells me.

Why does it have so much power over me? I don't know. If I knew, if I knew
the source of its power, perhaps I could eliminate it, or wear it down, or
disregard its nagging voice. But I don't know. And so I think . . . if I
don't know the source of its power, perhaps it is right, perhaps that's why
it is so strong.

I don't know. How can I? Right now, all I know is doubt. 


M