Self-Love.

I was thinking the other day: I have to start being nicer to the one person I'm the meanest to, the one I always insult, put-down, talk down to, call names, call worthless, hate, discourage, sabotage, think can do nothing, loathe, discount, etc; me. I have to start being kind to myself and learn some self-love and self-acceptance. I realized that I would never talk to and treat anyone else the way I do to myself, always telling myself how ugly and stupid and worthless I am, how I can't do it, how no one loves me, no wonder no one likes me, how unappealing, unlikeable, unattractive, undesirable, off-putting,disgusting, fat, lame, clueless, annoying, waste-of-space, etc. I am, constantly telling myself, every time I see my refelction in a mirror, a photo of myself, an image of my face, etc.. always reminding myself how useless, ugly and dumb I am, etc....re-playing the narrative of my school bullying over and over again in my head and in my mind, re-playing it in a loop, a neverending cycle of self-abuse keeping me down, forever playing in my mind reminding me how awful I am, what a horrible person I am, what a sorry excuse for a human being I am, why do I even exist, etc... I know part of it is my anxiety, part of it is the "conditioning" due to years of abuse, rejection, bullying and trauma in my life but it has to stop.

I have to stop abusing myself. If I constantly treated someone else like this it would be bullying. It would be cruel and mean, horrible, and awful. It wouldn't be tolerated and it shouldn't be. It's the exact same thing the bullies in school did to me. It was "only" 2 1/2 YRS out of my entire life but it was so powerful and so long-lasting it left permanent scars that will never heal,and that even after decades still contine to fester and re-open and spread. It's like a disease, like a cancer almost. Once this gets into your head it never leaves. It stays there with you,forever, haunting you, nagging at you, pulling you down, eating away at you, constantly reminding you, so now every time I "catch" myself saying something like You're so ugly! You're so stupid! etc. I have to make a conscious effort to stop, to remind myself Stop! Stop doing this to yourself! You are NOT!!You are just as good as anyone else! I really don't actually believe it yet but I'm hoping that over time I can "recondition" myself and my thinking to one day actually believe it and change my way of thinking, and maybe one day over time the behaviour will stop, and one day, maybe one day, I can look at myself in a mirror or in a photo, or be able to face myself in some other way without some negative reaction or comment, and maybe even feel positive about myself, maybe even along the lines of, You did a good job! You can do it! You are more capable than you think! You're not so worthless! etc. Small steps. Baby steps.