Contributor: Alyssa Nusse
Website: https://mylifediabetic.wordpress.com
Social Media: Instagram
“I understood myself only after I destroyed myself.
And only in the process of fixing myself, did I know who I really was.”
-Sade Andria Zabala
Raise your hand if you love yourself. Anyone? I hope you all raised your hand. Self-love is vital in achieving optimal health and happiness; but it has also been something I’ve struggled with since grade school. It wasn’t until about a year ago I decided to commit to loving myself, learning about myself, and respecting myself enough to make a change. I have come a long way since I started this journey, and it hasn’t always been easy. But, in the great words of RuPaul, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?” And all the people say, AMEN!
I learned at a young age the terrible art of comparison, and it truly has been the thief of joy ever since. Pair that with growing up in the early years of the internet and increasingly easy access to the judgments of media; it’s not hard to piece together how easily I fell into the trap that is comparison, which lead me to my friend low self-esteem, and robbed me of my self-confidence. I spent much of my younger years acting a fool trying to please others in hopes of fitting in and being accepted by my peers, who seemed to not be bothered by the same demons that plagued me. I cannot begin to describe the list of poor decisions I made because of this. Each decision left me even less confident and less happy than when I began.
High school and college were no different. I sought negative attention from anyone who made me feel seen. I lost sight of my self-worth, stopped expecting respect from others, and stopped respecting myself as well. This is when my depression began to take hold. I didn’t know it then, but I was so unhappy with who I was, I relied on others to validate me as a person. When I didn’t get the validation I sought I was driven deeper into the hands of depression. The immense numbness I felt drove me to take a semester off school and I moved back home.
Depression is a hard thing to describe. Not only because different people experience depression in various ways and to various extremes, but also because depression is not simply a feeling and there is nothing comparable to the experience of having depression. For me, depression was a force, one I could not reckon with. My depression told me I was alone, that no one liked me, that I was not deserving of love or friendship, and that everyone would be happier without me. My depression pushed away friends, partners, lashed out at family, and sprinkled thoughts of self-hate in my mind. My depression secluded me from the world, it held me captive in spaces where I would be alone, where I could contemplate self-harm and then would tell me I was too weak to go through with it. My depression found a friend, named anxiety, and together they stripped me of hope, trust, and my will to live.
Looking back, signs of my diagnosis started becoming apparent around this time in my life. I can’t fully separate what might have been influenced by depression and what might have otherwise been my immune system attacking my pancreas. The emotional instability that comes with hyperglycemia feels like my depression’s younger cousin. Similar in that they are both self-loathing, but distant enough that they have different strengths and it took awhile, but now I can easily tell them apart. It would be another two years before receiving my diagnosis. Two years of experiencing what I thought were sporadic bouts of depression but were more than likely the product of a hormonal rollercoaster I was unaware that I was on. The two fed off each other like children playing monkey in the middle. Except I was the child in the middle, and the ball was my emotional stability.
If you have made it this far, I thank you for lending your listening ear. Although now I try to focus on the good, and I think my friends would describe me as an overall happy person, who I am today would be very different without having gone through the ugly times too. I think self-love is a powerful and beautiful thing; it has literally saved my life, and I want to express the depth of its importance as I feel it now. I have decided to break up this, otherwise very long post, into a short series on my journey from rock bottom. I do not think my journey is over, even now as I sit here typing, I know I have a long way to go. Just as it’s important to know where you started, it’s important to recognize your progress and celebrate how far you have come.
As always, thank you for reading. From the bottom of my heart, I am grateful for the opportunity to share my experiences, both good and bad, with others. If you have ever experienced anxiety and/or depression, you are not alone.
Much love,
Alyssa
ED NOTE: You can read part two of this series at Alyssa’s blog, here: https://mylifediabetic.wordpress.com/2017/07/28/my-journey-to-self-love-part-2/