Hello there lovelies,
Since I'm talking about love this week, it would be terrible not to talk about what I believe is the most important kind of love - self love. I think that sometimes all of us, male or female, get so hung up on finding romantic love & on having lots of friends that we forget to work on loving ourselves. I also think that this is pretty damn sad, because every single one of you out there is fucking fabulous. You are all beautiful, and special, and totally fucking worthy of feeling fabulous every single day. And any time you spend hating yourself? It isn't fucking worth it.
I spent a long time hating, detesting, despising myself. I thought & said terrible things about myself, which in turn made me think & say terrible things about other people. I cried myself to sleep. I had no respect for myself, or my body. I dated horrible people because I truly thought that only a horrible person could ever love me. I ate lots of unhealthy food to try and stop myself from feeling so terrible about myself, and became the heaviest I have ever been. I self-harmed for about a year. I drank lots of alcohol to try & avoid the pain I was feeling, and I put myself in dangerous situations because I thought I deserved them. I developed incredibly harmful eating & exercise patterns, and became the skinniest that I had ever been.
But, I survived, and I came to a point where I said, "No. Enough, is enough." I saw a psychologist. I dug my heels in, and I refused to be cruel to myself any more. It's so easy to say that. It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life - and it isn't finished. Loving myself is a work in progress, and I work on it every day. For a long time it didn't get any easier to do. Now, it's easier for me to be kind to myself than to be cruel. I still have bad days, but they are much, much less.
I know I've spoken a lot about this on my blog, and I guess you might wonder why. When I started this blog I was still in a pretty bad place, and I think talking about the problems I have faced was more about venting. These days I want to show people that it is possible to hate yourself that deeply, and recover. I want to be honest about what I have been through, because it has made me who I am now. I want to let all of you reading who may have trouble with loving yourself know that you are not alone. Most of all, I want people to know that getting help & learning to love yourself is totally fucking worth it. When you feel so, so bad it seems easier to continue living the way you are already. You figured that things are already bad, and any change you make might just make it worse, so why fucking bother. And that's why I write, over and over again, about how "worth it" this change is.
Life is so much easier without that negative voice following you around. You have fun getting dressed, instead of loathing the mirror. As you feel better about yourself, you start to treat yourself better. Suddenly, it seems like an amazing idea to take care of your body, and give it the things it needs instead of fighting with it. The things you want to accomplish seem easier, because you aren't being criticized from inside your own head. You get in touch with the things you need, and the things you want. When you love yourself, you get to know you, and you get to feel awesome about that person. And that, my dears, is totally fucking worth it.
Until next time, xo.
P.S. If you are interested in more of my musings about self-love & body image, then browse my body image tag.
P.P.S. You should totally take the Declaration of Self-Hate Independence at A Is For Ampersand.
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