So it’s been just over a week since I heaved my rucksack onto my back, kissed/hugged some new found friends goodbye and tearily made my way back to civilisation. After what was one of the most cathartic and honest experiences of my life.

Due to prior commitments, the last seven days have been wildly different to the previously wonderful 4.5 days spent on that great farm in Glastonbury.    The very next day I was surrounded by about 300 other gays at a pool-party for Sitges Pride.  For the first time in my life I’m actually enjoying the spectacle of it all and not feeling body shamed or self-conscious.  Followed the next day by a BBQ with a bunch of old friends who’ve recently come back into my life, and I realised I have very much missed.   Then I easyjetted it over to the beautiful city of Rome – for a week’s crash course on people and crisis management.  Strange but true.

It is in that great Italian city, where I am now, in a cute little Air bnb flat, just off the beautiful Plaza Cavour – where about an hour ago, I felt compelled to commit some thoughts to paper.   Due to the cancellation of one of my friends’ flights I have found myself alone in Rome this weekend, with only my wits to keep me company.   Not such a wise thing sometimes.

Today having spent the afternoon walking around the stunning city, whilst marvelling at the remnants of 3000 years of human endeavour, something fundamental happened for me.  Something within me shifted and like the parting of the curtain within the emerald city, I suddenly could see the truth of the old man behind the illusion of the Wizard.    Stick with me friends of Dorothy, you will see what I mean.

Since my departure from the land of the Faeries I have been getting these sweet little after-shocks of emotional realization, that can and have hit me out of the blue.   One such aftershock hit me today, and it nearly knocked my off my feet.  For the truth of it was so strong and clear that I had to steady myself.   It was something I have known for many years, but have never, ever been able to give it voice or shape before.

I hate myself or rather, I am racked with self-loathing. It is like a cloak of shadow that I have wound so tightly around my soul that it is always with me. It consumes me.  It shapes how I see, feel and perceive the world around me. It provides me with vitriol that I use against myself and against all those whom I can target – in a bid to make my shadow-self feel better.

I am only just realising this, only today have I seen this truth for what it is.  There is a part of me that hates myself so much, it would actually happily see me destroyed.   This revelation was so strong that I almost had an out-of-body experience.   I felt, for a while, as though I was outside myself, looking at a strange being inhabiting my own body, someone/something that I didn’t recognise or like. Or to put it another way, I felt how I imagine the perpetually handsome Dorian Gray would have felt each and every time he lifted the cover from the painting, to see how truly ugly it had become.  Somehow separate and distinct from the ugliness – yet still one and the same with it.

Then a second thought hit me.

Why have hated I myself and for how long?  Why did this start?  Then a third.

When did this start?  When did I first look in the mirror and only see my faults?  The answer is that I don’t know and I never want to know. A very, very LONG time.  Almost for as long as I can remember.

Then I thought about how these thoughts manifested.  What I had heard the voice in my head say to me, over and over again:

My eyes are too deeply set!  My brow too Neanderthal!  My stomach is too big!  My nose too wide!  My legs too thin!  My hairline too low…On and on I went, listing the ways the negative voice could always find fault, when all others saw something completely different.

All were very real thoughts I have entertained, things I have said to myself repeatedly, building up a mental image of myself as some sort of missing link in the chain of human evolution.  Somewhere between Neanderthal and homo-sapien, but even less attractive.

And then all at once, a new realisation hit.   All of this was total and utter BOLLOCKS. These were untruths, negative opinions of myself.  With no basis in reality and no evidence for their existence. Bullshit and rubbish I have been carrying around with me for far too long.

The negative thoughts/voices – whatever you want to call them, have been so loud, for so long that they have shaped me.  NO that word isn’t strong enough.   RESTRAINED me.   Forced me into contorted, twisted shapes that were uncomfortable and unnatural to me.

I stoop, because I feel I am too tall.   And thus I now have rounded shoulders and a painful lower back.  I breath in because my stomach sticks out – which it would do if I stoop.   On and on these thoughts have taken physical and emotional manifestations that have become so overpowering that I nearly lost all sense of self in the vortex of negativity.

Jesus H Christ!   This has even destroyed my love life and my relationships.   I am too scared to talk to people I am attracted to for fear they will see an ugly wretch, barely worthy of their contempt – when this frankly isn’t true.   Then, even with those whom I am not entirely attracted to but want to try to connect with, I become so self-conscious – that they can only see someone who is nervous, agitated and clearly not happy in themselves, so they run for the trees.

Well, enough is enough.  This is bullshit and I can now see it for what it is.   It genuinely does feel as though the exploitative old man, whispering negative thoughts from behind the curtain has been exposed, and now I know he is there I have vowed to destroy him.   No longer will I listen to such crap about myself.

I know I am fairly good-looking.   I know this as I have been told it many, many a time, and have always shrugged it off.   Well from now on, I shall accept that compliment in the manner that it was intended and not recoil from it, as though someone had poked me in the eye with a hot branding iron.   So when I look in the mirror I will see what is there.   I may not be perfect, but I am happy and that suits me just fine!

I know I am respected in my job and career.  I actually have the awards / accolades and experience to prove that.   So old man, nothing you can say can / will take that away from me.

I also know I am strong, for over my 39 years, I have survived many different trials.  Not only those that are caused by the chaos that is external life.  But battles that have raged within, those created by the thoughts / feelings of self-loathing.  For here I stand, at 39 years of age discovering myself, liking myself, and growing into a much stronger, happier me.

Last week I found a new me.  A confident me.  A me that I can see myself truly becoming.   So I am owning that new me. Today I am WOLF.   WOLF is a work in progress.  But WOLF is happy and there is no self-loathing here.

WOLF is Giles.  Giles is WOLF.   The two will always be one.  But WOLF is the good, positive, strong Giles.  The real Giles, not the shadow self – the shadow self is dead!

Thanks Faeries.  You don’t know the gift you have given me.  The gift of freedom, it was only 4 days, but such an important four days.

I love you all.

WOLF