What is self-love? Doesn’t sound like a hard question, right?
When someone has lived in chaos and trauma, self-love is not something that is learned. In fact, it is furthest from reality.
You’re worthless.
You’re nothing without me.
You’re a waste of space.
Have you looked at yourself lately?
When you hear the same things over and over again, you begin to believe it. How could you not? Subliminal and not so subliminal messages are being fed to you on a daily basis. How can you stop the negative self-talk, when you do not have any other frame of reference. You use all the strength you have just to make it to the next day, there is nothing left to fight the thoughts that make up who you are. How can you love someone who seems unlovable?
When someone told me I had to love myself in order to love others my defense went up. I was angry at the thought. How dare they say that to me. How dare they tell me I have to love myself. In that moment it was an impossible ask. I was not in a place that I felt I deserved love. I thought it was my job to love and take care of others. I did not even make it on my list of priorities.
The next time someone said this to me, I took a step back. Maybe there was something to this. I watched others around me, and noticed our differences. I looked for small ways I could try to put myself first. The small steps pushed me to grad school, and that was where the real magic happened.
Each month I felt myself come a little more out of the haze of the illusions that surrounded me. The more steps I took out of the fog, the more I was able to see how I wanted to be treated by others. Before this, I didn’t think I had a choice. If someone wanted to take advantage of me, I didn’t say no. When I started to see my worth the people around me didn’t like it. It wasn’t as easy to push me around like they used to. I slowly learned how to say no.
Self-love was a long process for me. I had years of reprogramming. Years of clearing out the spaces that had been filled with violence and fear. The excuses poured in from every direction. The what if’s filled the air.
Some days I was able to push them under the surface, while other times I wasn’t as successful. The fear and doubt won. But, I didn’t give up. I kept trying to fight my way through the thick muck of self-loathing and self-doubt to the land of self-love.
Abusers use these weaknesses they see in us. They feed off of our self-doubt and assure us we are all the bad things we can conger up in our minds. Self-love takes our power back. When we don’t believe the awful things we used to tell ourselves any longer, we won’t believe when they say them either. When they put their hands on us, we know we don’t deserve it. We know we are worth more. We are worthy of love; our love. We are worthy of safe love. We are worthy of happiness.
We. Are. Worthy.
The best weapon against domestic violence is education and sharing our stories.
We will make a difference. One voice at a time.
Jessica Aiken-Hall