I am comfortable saying unconditional love was the single most important concept to my healing journey.
Accepting that as what I needed most is what fundamentally changed the direction of my mental health. When we come into this world, we crave unconditional love. We want to know we matter, we are valued, we are respected, we are of worth. Additionally, we come into this world ready to live, to be life, to love it. It is not until external factors come into play that we start to move in the opposite direction.
That is where the word abuse comes in. To abuse is to damage life, and there are many ways that can be done. The most obvious is to murder, but there are countless other small ways in which we can hurt one another. Name-calling, invalidating, demeaning, slandering, isolating, denying, withdrawing, controlling, hitting, screaming, the list goes on.
I received unconditional love from my dad growing up, but I did not receive it from my mom. Some may argue she did love me, it was just conditionally, but I will go ahead and make the bold statement that conditional love is not love at all.
To love is to give. When we place a condition on our giving, we are not giving, we are manipulating. If you expect something in return, how can you say you are giving? The end goal would be to receive. That is not loving.
With this in mind, I set out to love myself unconditionally. This is actually very hard to do when your self-esteem and confidence are shot. Anything that implies you've done something wrong is a threat to this love. It is so easy to fall into "I screwed up, they're mad at me. I did something wrong, I am wrong. I'm failing in my responsibilities, I don't deserve the things I have." It is so easy to hate yourself.
But that's not what I promised myself. I promised to love myself. So when I was late to work, "It's okay, you're doing the best you can." When I had a hard time getting out of bed, "It's okay, you're doing a lot right now, it makes sense to be tired." When I started eating consistent meals, "Good job, you're making progress." When I felt upset, "You have every reason to be upset." When I was mad, "Be mad."
Every moment was a chance to show myself love. And it worked. The more I showed myself love, the better I felt. It took pressure off of me and lessened the load on my mind. Additionally, the more I showed myself love, the better I understood what I needed.
I need patience. I need kindness. I need validation. I need to be heard. I need words of affirmation. I need time to myself. I need quiet. I need time to think. I need you to get away. I need you to come closer. I need to say what's on my mind.
The more I understood my needs, the easier it was to find ways to fill them.
The hardest part about all of this was discovering what it means to love. Love is complex, especially when you add others into the equation. It only gets more complex with the more people you add.
Do I reserve love for just myself? Do I extend it only to my family? Do I extend it to my community? Do I extend it to the world? What does love look like for each of those? What does love look like for people who are hurtful?
I needed to figure those things out.
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