Author: Laura Highcove

How to Love Yourself

Laura Highcove Leave a comment

Part, the first

You are a fucking mess.

What, still here? Weren’t expecting me to go that hard so fast, huh? Buckle up buttercup, cause it gets way worse.

You deserve love.

Ooo, that one hurt more than the first didn’t it? You’ve made it this far, so maybe you’re actually going to stick with me.

You can’t earn love.

‘But…but you said…’ Yep, hard and fast. We’re not wasting any time, cause this is a long road.

You already deserve love.

But you don’t love yourself. Or else why would you be here, reading this article? I wasn’t lying above when I said this is a long road. Cause here’s the thing. Loving yourself is simple, but it’s not easy. And you know why?

You have to accept that you deserve love.

And there’s the sticking point. Look at it. Feel it. Look upon it and despair. Rage at it if you want to. That is the only thing between you and loving yourself. The only thing. The. Only. Thing.

Simple, but not easy.

Part, the second

Nice, you followed me to the second part. Congratulations, and since it’s not always easy to tell with text, I say this entirely earnestly. Imagine I am standing in front of you, grasping your hands, looking into you eyes with a hint of tears in mine. Because I want this for you. I want it so hard it hurts. Because you want this for you. You want it so hard it hurts.

We’re going to take this one step at a time, but there are a few things we need to go over just to set things up. 1) I am not a therapist, this advice is just a result of my own research and experience. 2) You might need a therapist. Remember, and I say this with love: You are a fucking mess. And some people are more a mess than others and need someone who has studied how to deal with said mess and help make sense of it.

Still here? Again, congratulations. Here’s where I let you in on another secret, this one really is a secret.

Your mind doesn’t want you to love yourself.

So a majority of you hear a little voice in your head. It insults you, says things that you would never say to another person, and the worst part? It sounds exactly like you.

Your mind is not you.

Your mind is millions of years of instinct with one, and only one, goal. To keep your body alive. To keep your heart pumping blood throughout your body to keep your lungs working and your brain active.

Your mind doesn’t care if you’re happy.

Happiness, to your mind, is not in the definition of being alive. Many people can attest to the ability to be unhappy and still alive. And now the worst part:

Your mind will actively work to keep you from being happy.

Okay, it’s not working against your being happy per say. Your mind is trying to avoid doing any work at all that does not involve the active task of keeping your body alive. This is why all you ever really want to do is veg out on the couch, or take a nap in the middle of the day. Your mind wants you to conserve energy, because at any point you might need to run from a saber tooth tiger.

Because your mind thinks there are saber-tooth tigers.

There are not, in fact, saber-tooth tigers. But unfortunately your mind does not care about logic. It does not care how you beg and plead.

Your mind wants to keep you alive. Period.

And that means your mind is against anything that expends energy. That, includes, but is not limited to, working to improve your own happiness. You may have noticed how short I’ve kept most of these paragraphs. It’s on purpose.

Your mind will actively work to shut down any extraneous work.

That means losing focus, getting tired, fogginess, a straight up inability to think. Even reading this. It’s weird when you realize for the first time, that when you’re trying to think, to improve yourself, that your brain shuts down.

Tell your mind to shut up until an actual saber-tooth tiger shows up.

Simple, but not easy. You can’t do anything to curtail this except to practice noticing when it happens, and pushing through anyway. It takes repetition and practice.

Part, the third

Whew, you’ve made it to another part. You really are in this for the long haul aren’t you? High five. Time to get down to the brass tacks. This is where you finally, get a task with a specific, measurable result. Not always easy when working on mental stuff.

Make a list of all the reasons you don’t deserve love.

I’ll wait. No really, I want you to actually put pen to paper. (Or keyboard to blinky cursor.) You have reasons, we all have reasons. Write them down. It is a mighty list. Look at them, study them. There are items on that list you’re embarrassed about. You would never show another person. Make sure it’s complete as you can make it.

Throw away the list of reasons you don’t deserve love.

Simple, but not easy. Man, it really keeps coming down to that one phrase doesn’t it? Is the list gone? Is the list really gone?

The list is completely made up.

It does not matter. It’s not real. It is your mind doing its level to keep you alive by keeping you focused on the saber-tooth tiger. Now another list.

Make a list of everything you need to do, to deserve love.

I’m waiting again. Do what you do on your preferred medium. Think of everything you need to do, need to say, have to accomplish. In order to feel you deserve love. You can number it, organize it in levels of importance.

Throw away the list of everything you need to do, to deserve love.

I mean you saw that coming, didn’t you? Maybe you did. Maybe you didn’t. Remember, I told you above: ‘You already deserve love.’ You forgot, didn’t you? It hasn’t even been that long. That’s your mind again. It makes you forget.

The list is completely made up.

Truth of the matter, it’s also impossible to complete that list. Because even if you did the work to achieve everything on that list (that you threw away already, right?), your mind would come up with new reasons to add. Got it? Simple, but easy. Make a new list, one item:

I deserve love.

You don’t need to have reasons. Fuck reasons. You need practice. You’ve spent your entire life listening to your mind make lists, give you reasons, having you run from the saber-tooth tiger. (btdubs, your mind thinks all anxiety is a saber-tooth tiger. That’s why it’s so overactive. Cool right?)

I love myself.

That’s it. That’s all you have to think. Try it, just once. I know you can do it. You lie to yourself all the time anyway, what’s one more?

I deserve love.

Like swinging a golf club, like drawing a picture, like making an excel spreadsheet. It starts off messy, inefficient, painful, but you do it. More and more. Over time it will get easier.

I love myself.

And then it will get harder again.

I deserve love.

But keep practicing.

The Danger of the Fabricated Reality

Laura Highcove

Fabricated reality is a ‘reality’ that is created by either an individual, or a group of people who decide on a ‘truth’ that is not supported by agreement reality or actual reality (Ie, science and/or facts)
For example, no matter how many people believe that the world is flat, no matter the number of people, their ‘proof’, their insistence that they are being lied to, the world is not, and will not become flat. In addition, no matter how much a group believes that Trump is stirring up government and is going to restore greatness to America, that will not change the fact that he is a fascist who is determined to undermine the pillars of the country for his own benefit and power.

However, people will wrap themselves in this fabricated reality to reject the messiness of the real world that they either can’t understand, or won’t. And the dangerous part of this is that such people often make this fabricated reality, and the ‘truths’ therein a part of their identity. Which means when one of these ‘truths’ is called into question, you are not interacting with a rational or reasonable person and having the discussion or debate you think you are. In their mind however unconsciously, you are attacking who they are, and people in this situation will then double down on their ‘truths’ and ignoring anything to the contrary.

So, when you come across a person like this, you can remind yourself that they are living in a different reality, and no one can force them back. They would have to choose it for themselves, and not many of them will. The safest thing to do, if you need to interact with them for whatever reason, is not bring up anything related to their fabricated reality, if they do, then you counter it with a simple ‘no, that’s not true’ but do not engage in a debate. If all else fails, leave the situation. Remember, silence is acceptance, but take care of your mental health first.

Day 78

Laura Highcove

Who do I want to be during this time? Because my mind is trying to force me down the dark path, a path of hopelessness, of anger. And there is a certain amount of that needed. What’s going on in this country is bad, it’s BAD bad. And I want to remind people of the facts instead of the rhetoric that pulls you down.

This is not time for half measures and this is not time for giving anyone associated with Trump the benefit of the doubt. Trump is a fascist, Elon is a fascist, and his administration are just riding it for the power.
And people are going to be hurt. Poor people, LGBTQ+ people, POC people, non-Christian people, people, people, people, people and more people are going to suffer, not only by the policies that are revoked or put in place, or by the information that is spread or hidden, but by the hate that this man embodies and encourages in the people around him.

This is not a time for half-measures. This is not the time for benefit of the doubt. Call him out for everything. It’s not going to be easy. Things are already in place. Papers bought, the Internet and social media quietly ‘hiding’ searches. You can’t do everything, and you can’t do it all the time, but it has to be done. And we’re not doing it alone. Remember that.

Day 9

Laura Highcove

Like I know I should be the most pissed that he’s going to spread hated deport, immigrants, restrict women, jail blacks, and in general make a lot of decisions that are going to hurt if not kill people.
But I’m actually the most pissed that he now thinks he’s justified. That he said all that drivel, was convicted of 34 federal crimes, sexually assaulted women, and his narcissistic brain is justified that he is a man among men. Fuck all y’all and your ignorance.

Day 8

Laura Highcove

Okay, it makes perfect sense. The Uneducated are easiest to lie to. They don’t know how to think or reason beyond a certain capacity or how to research, find sources, and draw conclusions. If you want people to listen to your propaganda w/o questioning, being uneducated is the way to maximize the number of people who will believe you without questioning.


Thus leave it to the stakes, some of which will continue to fund schools and promote education and others who won’t, or, more likely, will teach whatever version of history they want. As a Qanon toting acquaintance so elegantly said when admonishing all education, “If you teach someone 2+2 is 3 their whole life, they won’t know any better.” And what better way to ensure children grow up knowing white males are superior, women are only smart enough to stay hope and please their husbands, and all POCs are dirty, stupid and savage such that they should either be deported or enslaved? Oh and America was always in the right and never did anything wrong.

So divides will really begin to form between states. Unable to find a job if you were educated in the ‘wrong state’. Does 2+2 equal 3 or 4? And, if you’re not rich/intelligent enough to home school a child in a state teaching its own version of history, sucks to be them.

Day 7

Laura Highcove

I read/ heard a story once about some prisoners of war and how they handled being imprisoned. The ones that expected to be freed, that expected any day that their country would come for them ended up breaking first. And the ones that accepted that this was their reality and maybe they would get out and maybe not ended up enduring.


I’ve been like the first one, expecting to wake up one day and the boomers have died and the idiotic selfish people have become the minority. And after the pain and shock of this election, I’ve have to accept that there is no one coming to save us. Things will never be ’good’ again, at least not during my lifetime. Enough voters are swayed by this drivel that it will always be a fight. And enough politicians care about nothing but money and power.


But even though this is reality, and even though sometimes we need to mourn or rage, there are plenty of people out there who feel the same. Plenty of people who are thinkers and carers, who are pushing through the fear to make things better. We are seeing the creation of the ’strong people’ that ’hard times’ create. And as long as we accept this reality and do what we can to nudge it toward a better one, we’ll be as okay as we can be.

Because this is the reality that we have to live in. There is no one coming to save us. I thought maybe the boomers would die off and we’d have only the younger generation who grew up in this shit economy, but this last election showed, nope.

Day 3

Laura Highcove

I had a very negative ’daydream’/what if type situation. I was at work doing a task that doesn’t require much active thought. And so my brain went on a magical journey about if the new regime tried to hand maids tale the women. And so I’m there imagining I’m in court because I won’t cover up, and the judge and people are telling me it’s the law and I’ll go to jail if I don’t and I just know if I comply that it’s all over and every woman in the country will end up like the women in Saudi Arabia.


And I know it’s stupid, but I went home and asked my partner what would happen if like, they passed a law that you couldn’t pay women as much as men. (Some sort of example of something little to get women in the home. I’m not diabolical, I know it’s not an amazing plan) for his logic, cause he just knows laws and examples and such and of course he did just that. How businesses could just ignore it, how women would strike, how like no one would put up with it.

And I felt better, but still informed a male friend of what was bothering me to which he replied that he got that was a terrifying thought, and entirely justified, though he doubted it would happen.
I know I wasn’t being logical. But at the same time, the feelings are real. Trump and supporters just have this…idea of the world that is so foreign to me sometimes and it’s a real possibility that they would try something like that. Technically roevwade could be considered the first step.


But the point of this was that no one looked at me and said that was stupid, or that I was overreacting. Not a single person I have expressed any feelings to has. If you have people in your life that are, get away from them. Find your supporters and be safe. Because this is not a good time to be holding in feelings because the people around you are emotionally stunted themselves.

Day 2

Laura Highcove

Yesterday was a day of shock and the five stages of grief. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to take the day off. I let myself mourn, I let myself worry, I let myself rage. I distracted, and created, and loved. And Tumblr was what snapped me out of it, because of course it did. Tumblr, the liberal bastion that is making so little money that it has only been minority corrupted by capitalism.


But today it’s time to start looking into what to do. Firstly, managing the emotional toll. First step, re above, was just letting myself feel everything I needed to. Without judgement, without shame. We, as a country, lost something yesterday, even the people who voted for it. Taking care of the mental health aspect of it is the most important, because everything is filtered through that lens. Ignoring your mental health (which includes tamping down your feelings) is the best way to lose before you even start.


Then on to the practical! Found a good article, in that someone on Tumblr posted it and I saw it, titled: ’’ Now this article is not messing around. There’s a certain amount of being an American that has seeped into my bones. We’re ’Murica. We’re awesome. A beacon of democracy, the land of the free and home of the brave and all the rest of that rhetoric, which really is the main reason for the rise of the MAGA regime. (Is anyone calling it that yet? I feel like it makes the most sense.) I’ve been aware and watching the slow(?) descent of the once powerful USA with a sad acceptance but somewhere I still believed in it. That America would stay the country I love.


Which is why I was so shocked (along with like…everyone) when Trump won in 2016. And even more shocked when he won two days ago. Because I assumed democracy would work, because ’Murica! We’re supposed to be free and safe and inclusive…right?


And reading this article was a slap on the face. “People who have lived under authoritarian regimes’. That’s who I’m accepting advice from. Because that’s an actually, real threat. Trump’s rhetoric, 2025. It’s fascism. (Oh good, scrivener doesn’t ’know’ the word fascism. I have to teach my word processor ’fascism’. Sigh.) we’re talking about direct comparisons to Hitler and the Nazi regime and not in a childish Internet argument where I don’t like your opinion so I’m comparing it to Hitler and Nazis, but in a very real world, adult, we are staring at fascism in the face in the United States of America way. We have been living the rise of a new fascist regime in real time.


People who are so scared at the charges in the country, who were then manipulated into even more fear, and remained so narrow minded in that fear that they voted for that…man. That they believe that things will get better if we kill all the immigrants, and the blacks, and the trans, and the gays, and put the women back in the kitchen to be used for sex and baby-making like God intended! And those fears will allow democracy to be overthrown. Safety over freedom.


Am I over-reacting? I sure as pie hope so. I hope that we collectively look back at this article in four years and you laugh at me, tease me about these predictions while we celebrate our new freely and fairly elected president. I hope. I really hope.

Untitled

Laura Highcove

Fear
Rage
Disbelief
Pain
Dizziness
Numbness
It was such a unfathomable outcome that I simply didn’t believe. I didn’t think people could be so hateful. So scared… I watched it happen in other countries, and I didn’t believe it could happen here. I’m going to watch my country crumble. The country that has surrounded and supported me, even though it wasn’t always the best. Even though it held back much of it’s love because I was born with a vagina. Even though. And it will go kicking and screaming as it’s raped by misogyny and racism and religious intolerance, but it will go. I will watch its gasping cries knowing that what I did wasn’t enough, and that all I can do now is sit in what privilege is afforded me, shielded while I whisper ‘I’m sorry I didn’t do more. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.’ And wait to see if it swallows me too.

No One Needed Umbrella Academy Season 4

Laura Highcove

There were lots of problems with Umbrella Academy Season 4, and truthfully, if you want a good overview of the individual plot lines and character issues, this video brings up almost everything I would, plus some things I forgot.

What I want to talk about is the ending. Yes. Spoilers.

So the entire story is that Hargreaves released the merigold, which created our characters, and with it a ton of timelines and an equal number of world ending scenarios. The Umbrellas stave off one world ending only to find another looming. So the ultimate reality is that for the Umbrellas to actually save the world they have to wipe the marigold (and themselves, who were created by the marigold) from existence.

We watched the Umbrellas, abused misfits that they were, working to do good, to make things better, to fight for good, to struggle and fail. Their quirky lives, their vivacious humor, as they lived their lives trying to navigate their traumas and their powers and each other. Saving the world, only to have it hurtle toward another ending.

This is not a matter of not liking that the story didn’t have a happy ending. This is the fact that not only was it a shaggy dog story, but the message was: no matter how hard you try or what your intentions are, you are worthless because everything you do only makes things worse. You were born wrong. You don’t belong. You can’t improve or change it. The world will be better off if you literally never existed in the first place.

I apologize if anyone is trigger by this; but that’s the point.

That was the take away message from this story, and as a creator, I’m appalled by it. We, as creators, have a responsibility to our readers/listeners/watchers to cause no harm. The industry of storytellers as a whole is trying to change the harmful stereotypes and tropes surrounding LGBTQIA+ groups and POCs in stories because of the misinformation and negative feelings it perpetuates. And this story’s message was a painful misstep that no one needed.