I Hate Myselfie

by Shane Dawson

  I met my first girl (SPACE) friend when I was six years old, and her name was Kaley. We lived a few houses apart from each other and hung out pretty much every day after school. We had very similar interests, like playing with Barbies, watching Mrs. Doubtfire on a loop, and peeing the bed. Ok, that last one was just me. But she didn’t judge me for it. When I would sleep over at her house her mom would give me a rubber sheet to tuck into my sleeping bag, turning it into a human-sized condom. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world but it was better than completely destroying their living room carpet. We were friends up until I was about ten. I’m not really sure what happened or why we drifted apart but I do remember a bizarre incident during which I punched her in the vagina to see if it hurt as bad as getting punched in the balls. That little experiment MIGHT have caused her to rethink our friendship. Understandable.

  I met my next girl (SPACE) friend when I was eleven years old, and her name was Sara. She was a little more experimental than Kaley, which is why I think we got along. A punch to the vagina was never out of the question. I’m pretty sure she even let me finger her once. It wasn’t sexual at all. It was more just to see what was in there. I was CONVINCED that women had hidden jewels inside of them. Call me a pussy pirate. But our friendship wasn’t just about discovering each other’s bodies, it was also about discovering each other’s mental issues. I’m pretty sure she was schizophrenic and I’m pretty sure I was a pathological liar. Her imaginary friends were WAY too detailed and at one point I told her that I was actually an alien from another planet. And I believed it. Neither of us sought psychiatric counseling, but we played doctor a lot, so that balances everything out, right? We ended our friendship because I moved across town, and long-distance friendships don’t really work when you’re eleven. This was pre-internet, so we didn’t have Twitter to follow each other on. It was almost like she’d died, and I totally forgot about her. Wow.

  Through the next fifteen years I had many more girl (SPACE) friends. They were all different and unique in their own ways. Some of them were crazy, some were adventurous, some were in wheelchairs, but they all shared one trait: they were nonjudgmental. I can’t stand judgmental people. The second somebody lifts their eyebrow at a situation I cut them out of my life. I like to live in a world where people can be whoever the fuck they want to be and say whatever the fuck they want to say. It’s interesting to me, entertaining even. I’m a glorified people watcher. And there’s nothing better than sitting back—no judgment of course—and watching people be themselves. It’s like TV but with no commercials, like a movie but with no annoying “turn off your phone” ads, like a play but . . . eh, never mind. I kinda fuckin’ hate plays. They’re the worst. It’s not judgmental to say that, right? Oh well, already said it. Can’t take it back.

  The one girl (SPACE) friend who has lasted the longest is Kate. We met when we were in sixth grade and bonded over the fact that we were both total fucking losers. That’s usually how I bond with people, over a realization that we are both lame and need each other. Probably not the healthiest way to start a friendship, but hey, what friendships are really all that “healthy” anyways? My friendships are usually big bags of fattening potato chips with a big jar of processed cheese on the side for dippin’. Finger-lickingly unhealthy. Anyways, we stayed friends throughout middle school and high school and she’s the only friend from the past I still see on a weekly basis. We lost touch slightly in high school, mainly because we both got boobs over the summer after eighth grade. Hers got her a few new cool friends and mine kept me in the loser circle.

  Kate has seen me at my worst, my best, and at my (pretty much all the time) mediocre. They say friendships between boys and girls always turn romantic no matter how hard you try to fight it. Those people are whores with no self-control. Wow. That was pretty judgmental of me. Ok, let me backtrack.

  I’m not going to lie; there was a moment in time when Kate and I dipped our toes into the cold, frigid, unsanitary lake of “more than friends,” but it lasted literally two hours. I remember those two hours vividly. I was eighteen and I picked her up from her house on a Friday night like I always did. I’d just had my car washed because the night before I’d hit some kind of animal on the freeway. To this day, I tell myself it was an opossum so I can sleep at night. It was definitely a puppy. Most likely a rescue. Most likely owned by a child who NEEDED it. Anyways, I honked my horn and she ran out of her house to my car like someone just blew a starting air horn at a marathon. I’m not exactly sure what was going on in her house, but it must have been pretty bad for her to bolt out like that. I’m assuming a family game of Monopoly or worse . . . YAHTZEE. I actually shivered as I typed that. So she got into my car and we went off to have one of our weekly adventures. These usually consisted of trips to the mall, maybe a dinner at Denny’s, sometimes a movie, and always ended with hours of watching YouTube videos of people falling down and/or having fatal accidents. Our favorite was a video of a baby getting hit by a bus. I promise, it was WAY funnier than it sounds.

  At dinner we had a moment. Not like in the movies where two friends look at each other and see “more.” And then they kiss each other in the rain and say things through their happy tears like, “I can’t believe it took me this long to realize this,” or “It’s always been you.” It wasn’t like that at all. It was more of an “I guess if we wanted to date each other we could. Like . . . it would be pretty easy and convenient. We see each other ALL the time. I mean, we’re practically married anyways.” See? Not that romantic.

  The thought wasn’t totally random though. A waitress came over and said, “Aww, you guys are a cute couple.” We didn’t say anything. We didn’t deny it. We didn’t say thank you. We just sat there. We looked at each other with “Eh . . . I guess, maybe?” in our eyes. We talked it out over a huge basket of sweet potato fries and milkshakes. Once again, I wasn’t exaggerating when I said my friendships were unhealthy. “So . . . should we date?” I said through my mouth full of greasy mush.

  “I dunno . . . ,” she said with a huge drip of milkshake going from her mouth to her shirt. And then the conversation went a little something like this.

  Me: I mean, aren’t we kind of already dating?

  Her: I guess. My parents think we are. They also think I’m a lesbian and that you’re gay.

  Me: Cool. I like your parents.

  Her: They’re ok I guess.

  Chewing. Swallowing. Sipping.

  Me: So . . . should we go on a real date?

  Her: Ok. Isn’t that just dinner and a movie? We kind of already did that tonight.

  Me: Well if I would have known it was a date I would have put on deodorant and not talked about trimming my ball hair for the first time.

  Her: I can’t believe you used your mom’s mustache scissors to do that.

  Me: Ya. I hope she doesn’t find out.

  More chewing. More swallowing. More sipping. Silence.

  Her: I don’t want to stop talking about your ball hair. Or stop telling you about my weird growths on my body.

  Me: Me neither. Well, the ball-hair thing. You can really stop talking about the growths. I get it, you have melanoma. Don’t rub it in my face.

  Laughter. Chewing. Staring.

  Her: Friends?

  Me: Ya. Friends.

  Smiling. Pause. Loud fart.

  Me: I thought that would be quieter.

  Her: Nope. Everyone heard it.

  Me: Awesome. Check!

  So after that we never talked about it again. We weren’t meant for each other in “that way.” We were meant for each other in a different way. She has become a member of my family, a sister of sorts. And to this day I can’t imagine life without her. She is one of the only things in my life that is a constant, and I cherish that. So, Kate, if you’re reading this, thank you for wanting to hear about my balls and not caring about my gassy stomach. But seriously, stop talkin
g about your growths. Just go to the fucking doctor already.

  MY STRANGE ADDICTIONS

  ABOUT THE ARTIST

  Leonie Lerner is an artist and musician living in Port Washington, New York, where she attended high school. She has studied drawing, pottery, and classical piano, and is an avid photographer. Leonie is pursuing a career in arts and psychology. Her Twitter handle is @leonie_rl.

  The smell of death and bags of pee filled my nose as I laid in ­silence on a crunchy plastic sheet. I was nineteen and once again found myself in an emergency room hospital bed on a Sunday morning. I was used to this by now, considering I had been there at least six times already that year.

  Before I get into why I treated the ER like a rich person’s vacation home, I want to give you some backstory about an issue I’ve had my whole life. I’m addicted to everything. I know a lot of people say they have a “chocolate addiction” because they get an extra scoop of ice cream for dessert, or they have a “shoe addiction” because they have one too many pairs in their closet. I don’t just get an extra scoop of rocky road or have one too many pairs of Skechers Shape-ups. (Yes, I actually own those. Don’t judge me.) I am severely addicted to everything I see or touch that gives me some sense of joy. Luckily I’m not addicted to my Skechers Shape-ups. Those were murder on my calves and didn’t give me the ass they promised in the commercial.

  When I was a kid I became addicted to food, and not in the typical way kids do, but in a Hoover-vacuum-sucking-up-everything-in-its-path kind of way. I wouldn’t just eat an Oreo, I would eat the whole box and then move on to something else. I remember at one point running out of real food, so I started eating condiments and spices. You haven’t lived till you’ve had ketchup pepper soup. Every time I would go to a friend’s house I couldn’t even focus on the games we were playing because I was thinking about what was in their kitchen. I had one friend who was always stocked up on name-brands like Pop-Tarts and Coca-Cola, unlike my house, which had Generic Brand Breakfast Bars and Dark Brown Drink. All I could think was, “Why are they not all eating right now? They have so much food! If I were them I would put a chair in front of the fridge and go at it! Preferably a chair with no armrests so I could fully let myself expand.”

  When my mom and I would take trips to the store she would have to drag me out of there because I would just stand in the aisle and stare at every single product. If I could have I would have eaten the entire store, clerks and baggers included. I’m not above cannibalism.

  Another one of my addictions was friends. No, not the television show about a fictional New York City that has no black people in it. Actual friends. When I met someone I liked I would want to spend every second with them. They became my ketchup pepper soup, minus the stomach ulcers. I wanted to be at their house, hang out with their family, play with their dog, skin them alive, and wear them as a bodysuit. That last one might be an exaggeration but the thought did cross my mind a few times. Except I was way bigger than my friends, so I would have probably had to sew two friends together. Or maybe just wear their face as a mask? I’ve thought about this way too much.

  Every year I would have a new friend because every year my current friend would become overwhelmed by my clinginess and stop hanging out with me. This is something that I still struggle with but to a lesser extent. When I start feeling myself becoming addicted to hanging out with someone I limit the amount of time I see them. I’m scared I will fall into old habits and start thinking about how good their flesh would feel on mine in that bloody skin suit.

  When I was seventeen years old I had a pretty rough experience that made me want to lose all my weight and lose it fast. I was with all my friends at an amusement park and we were going to ride the newest extreme roller coaster. I hadn’t ridden a roller coaster since I was a kid, so I was super pumped to get thrown around by a machine and then vomit into a trash can filled with cotton candy wrappers afterward. As I made my way onto the ride I realized that the seat belt wasn’t big enough to go around my waist. I had a full-on panic attack. How could this be? I was fat but I wasn’t “that fat.” Well, turns out I was. One of the workers walked over and escorted me off the ride. All my friends watched as I burst into tears and was taken to the exit. That was one of the worst days of my life, and even thinking about it now makes me feel like vomiting into an amusement park trash can.

  That experience sent me into overdrive. I lost 150 pounds in less than a year by eating nothing but chicken and doing nothing but running. I stopped hanging out with friends, and I stopped being able to have a normal conversation with anyone because all I wanted to talk about was weight loss and health. I literally became one of those annoying-ass clerks that you try to avoid at Whole Foods, except I wore deodorant.

  While I was losing the weight I became addicted to something that was more harmful than any typical drug. I became addicted to the artificial sugar called Splenda.

  Now, I know this is going to sound insane, and I’m sure you aren’t going to fully believe me, but at my peak I was eating over 250 packets of Splenda a day. That’s enough to last a normal person over a year. That’s 250 times more than any human should consume, considering one of the ingredients in Splenda is the same ingredient used in pool-cleaning products. The addiction started when I was hanging out with a friend one day and she was sipping on an iced coffee.

  Me: God. I want something sweet so bad. You know how long it’s been since I had sugar?

  Friend: It’s not worth it! You look so good now! What’s more important, eating ice cream or being able to see your penis?

  Me: You’re asking the wrong guy.

  Friend: Have you tried Splenda?

  Me: What’s that?

  Friend: It’s fake sugar. It’s pretty good. Here, I have an extra one I didn’t use in my coffee.

  So I opened it and gave it a taste. From that moment on, life had a brand-new meaning. How did I not know about this until now?! This was heaven in a small paper packet! If I could I would have dumped out all the packets in Starbucks and made Splenda angels in the middle of the store! I started using Splenda in everything. I put it in my cereal, on my vegetables, in my iced tea, and even directly into my mouth. After two years or so I got up to two full boxes a day, which added up to about 250 packets. I started talking about it on my YouTube channel, and kids would send packets to my PO box. Boxes and boxes were kept stored in my powder-covered garage. It looked like I was involved in some kind of drug-smuggling ­operation. I even planned out my own funeral. Instead of dropping flowers into a six-foot-deep hole before burying me, I wanted my friends and family to drop in packets of Splenda with handwritten notes on them. (I like thinking about death a lot, another one of my addictions.)

  The overdose of Splenda mixed with my unhealthy diet of chicken and vegetables (and nothing else) brought me to the hospital six times in one year. My life was on a downward spiral, and I couldn’t get a grip on it. I was constantly passing out from dehydration and having intense panic attacks that my doctor believed were side effects from too much artificial sugar and way too much caffeine. My family was always concerned but there was nothing they could say to me to change my mind. I loved that sweet poison, and I didn’t care about the side effects. At one point my skin even started to turn yellow, and not in a cute fake-tanner way, in a HOLY-SHIT-WHY-IS-THAT-GUY-YELLOW way. Which leads me to this specific trip to the ER, which changed everything.

  It was a hot summer day in Florida, and my family and I were hanging out at Disney World. I had never been there, so I was ready to see what all the hype was about. I was ready to ride some dumb rides and get stopped a million times for pictures by Japanese tourists who thought I was Zac Efron. I had my huge iced tea with fifty Splendas mixed in and was ready to take on the day. The thing about Florida that I wasn’t aware of is that they have occasional summer rainstorms. My first thought was, “Oh my God, my hair. Now those Japanese tourists are going to mistake me for Vanessa Hud
gens!” My second thought was, “Oh my God . . . humidity.” I did NOT do well with humidity. Not only did I hate feeling sticky, but I was already constantly dehydrated, so when it got humid outside I would start to feel insanely light-headed. The rain started sprinkling and my hair started frizzing. I started having a panic attack because I could feel the hot Florida air entering my lungs and sucking out all the moisture. My heart started racing because I knew that soon I was going to pass out. Every time I had passed out in the past, it had been because I was overheated, and the last thing I wanted to do was pass out at Disney World and get trampled by people running to get a picture with a former convict wearing a Monsters, Inc. costume. I ran to the bathroom because I figured it would be air-conditioned. My brother followed me inside.

  Brother: Dude, are you ok?

  Me: I just need air. I need cold air.

  The bathroom didn’t have air-conditioning so he started splashing cold water from the sink on my face. This is when things began to get foggy, and I don’t remember much of what happened next. I got so dehydrated that I went a little crazy and started acting like a child star having a breakdown in front of TMZ cameras. My brother told me later what happened, and it went a little something like this.

  Me: I think the devil is in me!

  Brother: What??

  Me: He’s in me!! I want him out!!!!

  So I guess I took down my pants and hopped into the cold-water-filled sink and started screaming obscenities.

  Me: GET HIM OUT OF ME!!! I’M GONNA SHIT HIM OUT!!!!

  My mom rushed in and saw me having a total mental breakdown, so she called 911. The next thing I knew I was waking up in a hospital room with Disney characters all over the walls. I thought I was in hell. As I lay in the hospital bed I looked over and saw my mom asleep in the chair next to me. She looked so tired. Not just tired because it was early in the morning but tired because the constant trips back and forth to the hospital were wearing on her. I could see it in her face that all the emotional distress of seeing her son slowly die a fake-sugary death in front of her was taking its toll. The doctor walked in with a clipboard and a concerned look on his face.