“You just have to love yourself,” they say. I agree with this sentiment. It is important to get to know yourself, come to terms with all that you are and fully accept it.

When discussing the concept of self-love, a positive context is often assumed. However, there is another experience that isn’t talked about. There is an ugliness that comes with loving yourself: loneliness, boredom, hyper independence, and consistent waves of disappointment, mourning, anger, and sadness.

I have been on this self love journey for as long as I can remember. Sometimes referred to as the “self love queen, “ which is cute, but it comes at a cost. I have noticed that people start use their perception of my self-assurance against me. It often looks like: not getting invited to social outings, not being celebrated for personal or professional milestones, others not being mentally present when physically with me, using my trauma as the punchline for a joke (because after all, I made it out right?).

These actions communicate an assumed level of infallibility that does not actually exist. There is an overestimation of my resilience, which then begins manifests in relational neglect. It seems that because I have demonstrated my ability to extend healing and love to myself, I receive less consideration and sensitivity from others around me.

As difficult as this experience can feel for the recipient, it is often even more challenging to discuss. In response to my concerns, I have regularly been met with the classic bullshit saying: “closed mouths don’t get fed,” which is an ironic response to someone attempting to voice how they’ve been hurt.

Defensiveness is a funny thing. It distorts intention, and the goal of the conversation gets lost. When defensive, a clear explanation of how someone’s actions have hurt another’s feelings, quickly starts to sound like a personal attack of character. I have observed that this regression in conversation usually stems from the fact that the individual isn’t ready to acknowledge and own up to their lack of care.

Then, the conversation ends leaving me still hurt by the initial action(s), frustrated by a lack of accountability, and growing in loneliness due to repeated experiences of self-love feeling like the only safe love. To top off the experience, I may receive an offering of an empty “I’m sorry.” You know, the kind of sorry you give when you would rather ask for forgiveness instead of what doing what you did in the first place.

As a result of this cycle, I have begun developing a theory: people know when they are mistreating you. They either don’t care, they hope you don’t care or don’t think you will care enough to say something.

This is a belief I have developed overtime and through experience. I have become so accustomed to the push and pull of initial eagerness of a new connection converging into disappointment and mourning that I should have it as a skill set listed on my resume.

I observed, starting at a young age, that people come and go and there is nothing I can do about it. For years I tried my best to fight this truth, but I’m finally at peace with it. It feels like overthinking, but I can tell, almost to the tee , when people start to get tired of me. I often start mourning the previous relationship long before it transitions to something less.

I think what hurts most about this process is that the other party seems to think I don’t notice, but I do. I actively watch the pieces unfold as someone begins tossing me aside. They justify themselves thinking that someone else is bound to come along and care for me, or that I am assured enough to provide enough care for myself. What is not considered is that often multiple people are having these exact same thoughts, and therefore no one is engaging meaningfully or intentionally in friendship with me. I’m left alone.

It’s boring knowing your self-worth and acting accordingly. You don’t want to go back because it would be a painful, yet you can’t go forward because you’re still healing. It’s almost like a filler episode like in anime. Then there is anger, an emotion I am finally allowing myself to feel. Anger at myself for not noticing and advocating for myself in the moment when my feelings have gotten hurt, and anger at others for not enduring when our friendship or relationship had to navigate something difficult. Which isn’t fair to myself because growing up I was groomed to initially think “how is this my fault?” However, anger is a secondary emotion. Underlying it is usually sadness. I’m sad because I want to the intimacy of being seen and heard the first time.

2023 did a HUGE number on me. Y’all, I was fighting for my life. I’m afraid to make friends, and I am afraid to explore being in a romantic relationship. I’m afraid of deepening my current friendships. I have noticed a difficult pattern that in many relationships the closer you get to someone, the less careful they are with you increasing the likelihood of being taken for granted. I don’t want that. I know conceptually that friendships and relationships are not all like that, but experientially it has followed this pattern overwhelmingly. Gaining the strength to try again will truly take a miracle.

I want to cocoon more and more into myself where it’s safe. I’m gentle with myself, kind to myself, patient with myself, thoughtful and loving towards myself. I am hopeful to experience this kind of care in relationships with friends and romantically, but I am hesitant of the risk it takes to develop such intimacy.

Although the act of loving myself can essentially work to dehumanize me in the eyes of perspective friends and romantic interests, I refuse to compromise this practice. I truly treasure the ones that see me fully and care for me accordingly, including myself.

Shredding the last of my people pleasing skin has been freeing. I may lose some people because of it but fuck it. We move.

Until next time,

SOMS

Shout out to Caroline Chapman for helping me edit this!