Writing this blog has been one of the most interesting experiences of my life. Truly!!! In the last month or two, I have had a lot of people reach out to me, people I know and people I have never met, in good ways and bad. Some people have shared intimate stories of their struggles with me. I have sympathized with them, prayed for them, and hoped they find their answers. I have offered them Dr. Jack’s email and website. It hurts my heart to hear some of them, and I try to offer, what I hope, is a friendly ear, my thoughts on what worked and did not for me, and my sincere caring for their situation. I know what I would have given a year ago, five years ago, to find a real person, who had gone through some successful journey to share with me. That is the only reason I am doing this.
Some people have been…… interesting, but I gave up negatives for Lent so we can’t go there today.
In the last week, though, I have heard at least five people tell me, how much they hate themselves. They feel stuck and they don’t know what to do to feel better, and they don’t feel like they can do anything because they hate themselves. And nothing hurts my heart more than hearing that. They tell me that their failure is all based on the fact that they gave up a long time ago, that they are not worth it, and that they just hate themselves. They don’t want to invest the time or cash into making themselves better, because they don’t believe it will get better.
That hurts me because there have been times in life where I hated myself. And it wasn’t that long ago. In all honesty, I have devoted way too much energy to hating myself, rather than extending the same kindness I offer others. Maybe I didn’t hate myself the same way they do, but I think every single human being goes through those phases where you just think you are awful. You wish you had made better decisions. You wish you had chosen other paths. You look back and analyze everything you have done and ask yourself, how could you have made those choices?? I have come to ask myself a really important question though……. what good does that do?? What purpose does any of that serve?? Seriously….. what good can come of beating yourself up every day? The only thing that happens is the slide downward as the cycle goes round and round.
As much as we all think we are so different from each other, in reality we are a lot alike, too! Every person has things they wish they had done differently. Everyone has regrets. Every person on this planet has things they wish they could go back and redo, but hating yourself is not going to change any of what happened and it certainly isn’t going to make you feel better. Self hatred leads to more self hatred. It is a slippery slope going down fast and will solve nothing. And like any nasty habit, the more you do it, the easier it gets to do it, and the more it becomes a bad habit.
When Hashimoto’s disease and I got to be such close friends, it was difficult to lose weight. When everyone else dropped ten I was still on two. As the disease progressed, so did the difficulty, they lost twenty, I lost two. And then it got really bad where they lost fifty andddddddddddddddd I lost none. And as discouraged as I got, and at my lowest points, I know I hated myself some. I got down on myself for not losing the weight when I was younger, when it was easier to get it off. I got mad at ME, at my body, at this disease. But I found out, my energy was going to all the wrong places. When I was ready to give up, to just give in and say, “Forget it, nothing will work for me,” well, if I had not taken that one more step out of that darkness to this experience, where would I be today?
I know you might think it is easy for me to tell you what to do and I am not trying to do that. I guess I am just hoping someone takes my experience and saves themselves from a ton of pain.
I am just saying that under no circumstance should anyone hate themselves. I often think, that as a teacher, I can show tons of patience for children. I have helped friends many times who were lost with projects or things they needed to do, and I showed patience. I have not always been so kind to myself.
You have to love yourself. First and foremost, you have to care about YOU. When in life will it be the right time to put you first for a change? When is it your turn? We all think we are being selfish by putting ourselves before anyone else. But the truth is, sometimes, you have to take great care of you before you can care about anyone else…. It took me a lot of years to figure that out.
You know, a long time ago, when things in my life were not all that great, my friend Mark, gave me a great piece of advice. He told me to take a piece of paper and write on it, “Chris first,” and put it in my pocket. Lots of times during the day, I would pull out that paper and look at it. I carried it everywhere, until it was nothing but crumbles. At the time, I thought it wouldn’t help me much but it actually did. It reminded me all through the day, that I had to take just as good care of me as I did everyone around me. After all, if I didn’t love me, who else could?
Hating me never solved anything. I had to care enough about me to keep looking for an answer for my situation. I had to be the same kind of friend to me that I was to everyone else. I hope those five people figure that out sooner than I did.