What it’s like to not accept yourself.
Walk towards a mirror in your house, and stare for a good few minutes. Do you like what you see? Can you even look at yourself? Are you happy?
I pose myself with this question most mornings. Some days I’m happy. Some days I pretend I’m happy. For the final question is more complicated than you first think. It has many components. It involves where you live, friends, family, lifestyle and so much more.
My first counselling session was at 16, if you could call it that. I recall being stared at for what seemed like 30 minutes, with no questions. They expected a teenager to speak openly and honestly to a stranger, when I could barely speak to friends and family. You see, it was around this time that I started to realise that I was probably bisexual, and I’d already been dealing with other kids mildly bullying me for seeming gay. Looking back on it, this one event was probably the first time I began to understand my self-loathing, as I knew from the age of 11 or 12 that I hated the way I looked, from my haircut, to my eyebrows and one that I still struggle with is the shape of my body/weight.
At 18 I started university, which for most, including me, would be a fresh start in some ways. I was still afraid to tell people what I identified as, because if I did, then I may be viewed differently. I may let them into my inner thoughts that felt so personal and so damaging to me. However, this was also the year that I first fell in love, with a man, and also the year I felt my life start to fall apart completely. In the beginning, for the first time in a long, long time, I felt happy. I felt safe knowing that I was in my own bubble, and if everything was easy then I would finally learn to accept myself.
This relationship lasted a year, but this love lasted double that time. I learned that when you date someone who is closeted and has as much inner-anxiety about their identity as you do, you can’t hate them. You can try, but it only exudes love and care.
I adored this relationship to the point that I would be crying over being left on a rugby pitch where he had played, while he left with his friends because he didn’t want them to know I existed. Yet I’d still come back. I relied so much on the acceptance of someone else, that I broke myself down in the process.
In this relationship I had the best parts of myself, mixed with the absolute worst. Five years and many arguments later, I still feel the effects of what those events did to me. From the happy but damaged relationship, to the hateful school days, and the anxiety of being treated differently.
The above is just a fragment of some of the things that lead me to feel the way I have felt. I may not have had the worst parents, or a toxic relationship in some senses, but the anxiety inside still builds.
When you’ve grown up not learning to love yourself, or accept yourself, particularly in regards to your sexuality, you develop an internal homophobia, and a shame that hangs over your head. With every new person, you never speak of relationships and are careful on the pronouns you use if the subject does arise, just in case they find out and you receive the same reaction you faced 8 years prior.
You spend evenings hitting your head because you aren’t happy, and you’re frustrated that you won’t ever be happy.
At 23, I finally found my way into therapy that helped. When I’d had a family that was being torn apart, a job where I was made to feel unworthy and something I should be grateful for, as well as the looming one-year trip away from everything I knew.
I honestly can’t recall why some of the time I’ve wanted to end it all, or why those pills found their way into my hands. I just know that they did, and I still get that feeling sometimes. That overwhelming sensation of tears ready to fall down my cheeks, because I’ve realised I’m not doing anything that I thought I’d achieve.
At 25, you are expected to be on track. A graduate who’s aware of the career path they’ve chosen, a partner who they may settle down with and an overflowing savings account. I’d love to say I have these things, I really would.
I don’t believe I will be fully healed in 5 years. I still believe that it will take a long time for me to fully accept myself, but I know that when I do, I won’t be afraid.
Do I like what I see? Sometimes.
Can I even look at myself? I prefer not to.
Am I happy? I don’t know, but someday I want to be.
turnnoffyourmind
snowghoul
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