The Journey of Learning to Love Myself, Pt. 1: The Dark Place & the Turning Point

Growing up we all have an innate desire to be loved and accepted by those around us. That is simply who we are as people. It is a scientifically proven fact that those people who feel loved and accepted are healthier and happier people. What happens though when we find that those around us telling us they love us aren't being real and that we hate ourselves just as much as they supposedly love us? These thoughts were and still are a constant everyday struggle for me starting in the beginning of eighth grade and continuing into much of my teen and adult life. There are plenty of people out there who struggle with their self-worth and loving who they are and so I hope that an insight into my journey that has lead me to who I am today, and the words and phrases I discovered for myself or were shared with me along the way can possibly help someone else who is feeling lost, broken, and alone.

We will start this journey by going all the way back to sixth grade. My family and I had just moved from a big city in the center of the province where everything was convenient and constant to a small town in the North corner of the province where hardly anything was convenient and everything was constant to a boring degree. The biggest qualm that I had about moving, much like any other 13-year-old, was leaving all of my friends behind. I grew up with many of these friends from kindergarten and I was always the happy, friendly kid who made friends extremely easily. Now though I was going to be living in a small town (further on referred to as Little-town) in the middle of nowhere, where I knew absolutely no one (except my brother who was two years older than me) and we were moving in the middle of a semester, not exactly the ideal set up for a girl just beginning to discover and figure out who she is. On the positive side for my parents was the fact that my mom grew up there and so they would at least know some people there that would inadvertently lead to us kids meeting their kids and becoming friends (yeah it definitely didn't work out this way...) Moving to the town wasn't the biggest issue on my mind, that was trying to create and maintain new friendships with people who I wasn't sure I could relate to, them being from a small town and me a big city. I was hopeful however and believed that if I put my mind to it I could become well liked and fit in great! Boy, was I wrong and naive...

Now I have to be honest, it wasn't terrible those first few years in Little-town. I made some amazing friends and got involved in lots of extracurricular sports and drama, I had a job I could tolerate doing with co-workers that I loved and so things seemed to be pretty good. That changed, however, when eighth grade rolled around. For starters, I matured MUCH faster than the other girls in my grade; and from the summer of seventh grade to the beginning of eighth grade I went from an A cup to a C cup, trust me this was a HUGE change that took some serious getting used to and was something that at the time I didn't know if I liked it very much. Another big difference between me and a lot of the girls my age was the interests that we had. While most of them had either been figure skating or dancing since they were little I was into comic books, video games, and Dungeons and Dragons. This created a huge rift between myself and the other girls, mainly due to the fact that I hung out with mostly guys and got along with them a lot better. This was especially the case when it came to High School... While they did everything in their power to be noticed by this guy or that one, my friendships with them came naturally and I liked just hanging out with them with no ulterior motive to our friendships. This, however, began to really weigh down on my self-worth and esteem. How? You may ask, cause that seems pretty good to me, but let me tell you it looks much better on paper than what was experienced in real life.

To begin with, let's take a look at the relationships I had with the other girls in my grade or around my age. One of the biggest things that happened is the rift between them and me. Looking back now I can say that perhaps for some of them it was jealousy but at the age of 15 when all you want to do is fit in, their words, actions, and hatred was not something I was expecting. A lot of these girls were absolutely beautiful and had been as long as I knew them, they were the perfect example by society's standards of what a teenage girl should be. They were all extremely fit or beautifully skinny with all of the right proportions that made guys fall at their feet and want to date them. And there here I was: 5'2", muscular legs and arms due to sports, big boned and not the most perfect complexion. In my eyes, I couldn't hold a candle to any of them when it came to the dating game, and many of them made sure to let me know it. I was always the big girl in Middle School but lost about 60lbs from the end of ninth grade to the beginning of tenth grade and I felt great about it! But to many of these girls I was still the big girl that I was in Middle School no matter what size I was and they made sure to never forget that that was who I am. Now this might sound like something from one of those overdone Hollywood High School cliche movies... well living in a small town where everyone knows everyone and we spend almost every day with each other with nothing better to do than make others feel like they were less than worthy, I honestly began to feel like a cliche High School movie character, 'cause let me tell you, from my experience small-town high school girls are cruel...

I surrounded myself in 11th and 12th grade with people who shared the same interests as me, especially comic books, and it made the teasing of others a little easier to manage. There were even a few crushes on guys in my friend group through the last two years of high school, never amounting to anything substantial but at least I was comfortable enough feeling these things. But in the back of my mind lingered a voice that kept telling me I wasn't good enough, and never would be... not for anyone... The year after I graduated was one of my darkest years, but it was also the year I truly believe my journey of self -discovery, acceptance, and self-healing really began.

I was still living at home the year after I graduated since I wasn't 100 percent sure yet what I wanted to do. It was during this time that I realized just how lonely and depressed I had become. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't find much joy in anything. Not in sports, drama, comics, or video games, the joy I once found in these things had vanished. It got so bad to a point that I would spend my days off, alone in my room just so I wouldn't have to see or interact with anyone.

**I am going to be going into some pretty dark stuff in the next paragraph or two just as a heads up.**

Now probably a lot of you can see where I am going next but it's good to talk about it, accepting it makes things seem a little easier. During this time suicide became a constant thought on my brain. I truly and honestly believed that those around me would be better off without me. My mind would continually remind me of the bashes and names of high school and each one dug into my skin like a spiked whip. No matter how hard I fought the thoughts they continued to plague me and pull me down like a sinking ship. It eventually got to a point where I couldn't handle it anymore, one day I walked into my room and said this will be my last day. I had attempted and failed three times before today but there was something inside me this time that made me determined.

I didn't even write or leave a note because my mind told me that no one would care that I was gone they would just be happy I was. Depression is like a terrifying monster that hides in the shadows and waits for the perfect moment to pounce, these thoughts were the result of the moment it pounced. I had everything in place, I had it all planned out and I was ready. I almost succeeded, but when it came to the final cut from the razor, I froze. Not because I was afraid of dying, or because I didn't have the guts, but because I heard my little sister come home and she called for me because I had promised to take her to the movie that night. It was at that moment that I knew if there was anyone in the world I wouldn't want to find me like this is was her. I loved her far too much to put her through that. Heh... I look back now and realize that God has a funny way of things turning out. Seven years later and my sister still doesn't realize what she did for me that day, maybe one day I will tell her...

This was the beginning of my journey where I realized that she loved me as much as I loved her and that maybe just maybe I could learn to love myself again too.

**Pt.2 Coming Soon**

**Any Questions? Please Ask, I am here to listen and answer**