“You Hate the F*ing Lot” — Why Society Self-Harms (and Why I Tried Anyway)
- Karen Di Gloria
- Jul 1
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 13
There were moments—I remember them too clearly—when I felt like I had failed. I had poured my soul into trying to help someone drowning in addiction. I thought if I just loved harder, listened more, softened every edge in my voice, maybe I could reach them. But instead of gratitude or breakthrough, I got rage. Mockery. Emotional knives thrown my way. And all I could do was bleed.
I played “Messy” by Lola Young—on repeat.
Not in bed crying. Not in some dark room with a bottle.
I was on a stair climber—my so-called happy place.
Climbing and sweating, chasing elevation, but going nowhere.
That day, the stairs weren’t the only thing on a loop.
My thoughts were, too:
“Why do I keep trying to help people who don’t want it?”
“Why does love make me the target?”
“A thousand people I could be for you, and you hate the fucking lot.”
That line hit with every step.
I wasn’t just burning calories—I was burning grief.
The kind that builds when you pour your heart into someone,
only to be met with emotional punches and slammed doors.
Every word hit like truth I didn’t want to hear but needed to. It gave language to that gut-deep ache: of trying to show up for someone who doesn’t want to show up for themselves. Of being turned into the enemy because you’re a mirror they’re not ready to look into.
Why Do We Self-Harm?
Not just as individuals, but collectively—as a society?
We harm ourselves in a thousand subtle and loud ways:
Binge drinking. Silent shame. Overworking. Under-eating. Rage blackouts.
Scrolling into oblivion. Chasing people who abandon us.
Suffocating our truth just to fit in.
Why?
In our cells. Our habits. Our choices.
It leaks out sideways when we try to pretend everything's fine.
Some of these wounds are conscious:
"My father abandoned me."
"I was never enough for my mother."
"They touched me and no one believed me."
But others? They're ancient. Stored deep in the subconscious. Handed down like curses in our DNA. Echoes of trauma we don’t remember, only reenact.
Numbing as a Sacred Survival Skill
Let’s be real—drugs and alcohol work.
They mute the screams.
They soften the edges.
They give the illusion of warmth in a world that’s cold.
When someone’s trauma is so raw it threatens to engulf them, lashing out at the person holding the flashlight feels safer than walking into the darkness.
It’s not that they hate me.
They hate what I represent: a way back to the pain they’ve buried.
Addiction isn’t just a choice—it’s a protection spell.
A way to keep the vault sealed shut.
Because opening it?
Means facing everything they’ve spent a lifetime running from.
And Yet . . . I Tried
I still tried.
With love. With anger. With silence. With words.
I tried to reach through the barbed wire.
But here’s the part that shatters me:
Some people don’t want to be saved.
Not because they’re bad—but because they don’t believe they’re worth saving.
And when you love someone in that state, it hurts.
It hurts like hell to be the punching bag for their unprocessed grief.
The Soil is Tainted, Not the Seed
We think people are broken. But maybe it’s the soil—not the seed.
The environment. The system. The lies we were fed.
Be good. Be quiet. Be thin. Be strong. Be perfect.
Or you’ll be unlovable.
So we shrink.
We perform.
We self-destruct in private.
Because that’s what we were taught:
Your truth is too messy. Your needs are too much.
Be someone else—or be alone.
Lola Young’s “Messy”: The Anthem of the Unseen
This song doesn’t just tell a story—it cracks one open. It speaks to the part of me (of us?) that’s exhausted by the performance:
“You told me get a job, then you ask where the hell I’ve been.
And I’m too perfect ‘til I open my big mouth.
I want to be me—is that not allowed?”
It’s the cry of every soul who’s contorted themselves to be loved and still ended up rejected.
It’s the heartbreak of being too much and never enough all at once.
Why I Still Believe in Digging
Even when people fight you.
Even when they project their pain onto your kindness.
Even when it doesn’t lead to a happy ending.
I still believe in pulling at the roots.
I still believe in helping clean the soil—even if I never see the bloom.
Because love doesn’t always look like saving someone.
Sometimes it’s walking away without closing your heart.
To the Messy Ones
If you’re reading this and you feel like the failure—like the one who couldn't fix them:
You're not a failure.
You're just not God.
You’re human. You loved someone messy. And maybe you’re messy, too.
Good.
Because this world doesn’t need more perfection.
It needs more people willing to stay messy and still choose to love anyway.
Even when it breaks them.
Even when they bleed.
Even when all they get back is silence—or worse.
So play that song. Scream the lyrics.
Feel it all.
Then write your own.
If any part of this touched something inside you, I’d love to know.
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Until next time,
Karen Di Gloria
🔥🎼⚡️
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