On learning to love myself
The pain of being “too much”
Learning to love oneself is no easy task. It’s something that I have struggled with a lot in my life, from my face and body, to my personality and voice, the way I look and present myself. I’ve found it difficult to like any part of my being and felt a lot of pressure to fundamentally change who I am. This has come from various sources; family and friends, random people I’ve never met and even representation within media.
One aspect of this struggle has always been my physical being. From an outsider’s perspective, it may be confusing as to why I have such issues. I have a pretty slim physique, a decent height and a nice head of hair. However, media representation of men always made me feel insignificant. Men are expected to be physically strong, with cut abs and big biceps. This is a body type that I just don’t have.
A lot of the comments I received from people helped feed this insecurity and whittle down my self-esteem. My Dad used to constantly ask why I don’t look like the other guys, commenting on how skinny I am and giving me hurtful nicknames. This was backed up by those in high school, berating me for being weak.
I always used to tell my Dad that my focus lied elsewhere. That whilst people in high school may be focusing on their physique, I was focusing on my studies and trying to achieve my best at school. This used to keep him off my back for the most part, but the comments still came and always stung. The problem hit a head when I went to Uni. My parents dropped me off at the Campus and as we were walking, my Dad caught a number of guys walking past us. He pointed them out and stated “Those guys are built and are at the same Uni as you. So why are you so skinny?”
At this point, I snapped and shouted at him to go home. Those words stuck with me for a long time. This has all fed a number of insecurities around my body. I wouldn’t be found in anything less than a t-shirt and jeans, no matter the weather. It could be 30 degrees and I would still wear full length black jeans, as I was ashamed of showing my skinny legs. I wouldn’t wear vests for the same reason and struggled to show my body to people.
It wasn’t just my body that I was uncomfortable with, but other aspects of my look as well. I never liked the shape of my face, the lack of body hair on my torso or the stretch marks on the side of my skin. I used to receive a lot of negative comments about the way my voice sounded, which made me uneasy over speaking to people. I also received a lot of hate when I first grew out my hair, being told it was feminine, a hairstyle for girls.
This was something I was used to hearing about my personality, another aspect of this struggle to love myself. Whilst I never liked the way I looked, I used to think my personality was decent enough. This slowly disintegrated over the years until my thoughts around my personality were just as low as those around my looks.
As I was growing up, I was always told by my Dad to stop doing or enjoying certain things because it was for kids or for girls. I would play Pokémon and play with plushes and was asked by my Dad when I was “going to grow up” or “stop being such a girl?”. I remember my Dad making a point of me about to enter high school and saying I needed to change. I very nearly listened to him. I recall seeing the new Pokémon game, Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, on the shelf of the store and not wanting to buy it. I looked at it and thought it was for kids, thought I needed to grow up and move on. I felt so much guilt when I went to my Dad and asked him if he could buy it for me, like I had somehow failed him.
High school was tough, as it normally is for most people. I didn’t fit in with the popular crowd. I wasn’t into sports, I wasn’t into the same music and I sure as hell didn’t play FIFA or COD. I was ostracised, left on the outskirts of the social groups. I created bonds with others in my situation and came into my own. I wasn’t capable of faking it and being someone else, so I learnt to embrace who I was. I didn’t have a lot of friends, but had people who loved me for who I am. It made the hatred from others more bearable but not entirely.
I used to encounter people who hated me the second they met me. I still do. They barely knew me and couldn’t stand me. That was always difficult to deal with. I couldn’t understand what I had done wrong to be on the receiving end of that kind of vitriol. I was labelled a lot of things. Too loud, annoying, talks too much; “too much” was a recurring theme. A phrase I’ve heard a lot of in my life, too much in fact. It was difficult, but I knew I had people who loved me and that made it easier.
But this changed recently. A couple of years back, I came out as bisexual. I was in love with my straight best friend and didn’t know how to deal with it. After talking to people, I found out that my best friend was talking behind my back, calling me “too much”. I discovered that him, and others, had issues with some of my past behaviour and just didn’t say anything. This really wounded me, deeper than I initially thought it did.
That two-word phrase had come up again, “too much”. But this time, it came from a person I really cared about. From people I really cared about. I didn’t know what to do. My trust in people completely disintegrated and I couldn’t look at myself without berating myself. The voices in my head got extremely loud and I could no longer hold them back. I was brought back to a fight I had with my brother, when he told me that none of my friends really liked me and they would be better off without me.
Obviously this was something that was just said in anger, but it stuck with me. This tiny seed of doubt that had been sitting in the back of my mind for years was suddenly a huge oak tree that I couldn’t cut down. At this point I put a very long post on Facebook with my thoughts during this time. My self worth had fallen off a cliff. This was two years ago from today.
I tried to move on from this friendship group. I had new friends and tried to cultivate the friendship but I was in a lot of pain. The past kept resurfacing in my mind and it sometimes felt like history was repeating itself. As in that Facebook post, I kept blaming myself. I kept thinking that if I was only a better person, maybe these problems wouldn’t keep occurring. But occur they did and the friendship fell apart.
I don’t know if I really believe in fate, but sometime during this period I came across the following poem on Facebook:
I remember that I saw this poem at work and started reading it. It hit me so hard, I ran to the bathroom and started crying.
The struggles with both my looks and personality were both partly fuelled by my loneliness, the last struggle. The fact that no one had ever expressed an interest in me. I didn’t kiss anyone, let alone have sex, until I was 25. My first date was at 26 and I’ve never been in a relationship. This lack of a love life fuelled the negativity about my looks and personality, constantly thinking that I must be fundamentally flawed in some way to be this unloveable. I remember on numerous occasions being with a female friend and having men laugh at me, thinking we were together and wondering why.
I tried to put myself out there, as my friends suggested. But on hookup apps, I got complete radio silence. Getting a message from someone would be a rare occasion, and it was normally from a faceless profile. Getting a reply just didn’t happen. I would rarely match and, when I did, it always resulted in being ghosted, no reply or being unmatched. Social media, and in person, was completely dead as well. The only thing that this achieved was creating more pain for myself and amplifying the issue.
Recently, I’ve been trying to break down some of these problems and improve my state of mind. I’ve been trying to look in the mirror and, in my head, compliment myself, to see something I like. I internalise those few compliments I get from external sources, to see it in myself and own it. Whilst my hair may have received a lot of hate initially, it now gets a lot of compliments. I’ve used this to help build my self esteem and really love my hair.
I’ve also learnt that it is ok to look or be feminine. That it doesn’t, and shouldn’t, matter if I’m feminine or masculine or anything in between, all that matters is that I enjoy myself and who I am. It’s ok for me to enjoy Pokémon and plushes, to have long hair and be emotional. It doesn’t make me less of a man, as some would say. Just comfortable in who I am.
I have been taking positive steps both physically and mentally. Last summer, for the first time in a long time, I wore shorts. The heatwave was unbearable and with no signs of letting up, I knew I had to make a change. I started to really enjoy wearing shorts by the end of summer and I’m looking forward to the warm weather this year. I’ve also started using social media, mainly Instagram, to highlight the issues I have with my body and build up the confidence to display more of my body and show it more often.
Mentally, I’ve started to accept that I am not “too much”, just that I’m not to that particular person’s tastes. And while I may face more rejection than most, considering how strong my personality is, that doesn’t mean that I am fundamentally flawed. I have stopped taking the blame for everything that goes wrong, understanding that there is fault on both sides. I try to highlight my wrongs, take responsibility for them and learn from them rather than beating myself up over it. To not change who I am, but to grow and improve myself.
I have also accepted the fact that not everything will last forever. Some friendships may fall apart and that is the natural course in life. You can try to work out the issues, but if it is no longer functioning then it may be best to part ways. It is better than putting all your energy to force it to stay intact, as that only leads to further pain. Unfortunately, I have this anxiety that all my relationships have a clock on it. I’m worried that time will run out and I will lose more people I care about. I also worry I will have nowhere to go when it does. I’m working on placing myself in the here and now and enjoying the present, the way life has presented itself to me, rather than fixating on what might happen.
I have also changed the way I centre my life. Previously, my life would revolve around a group of friends and creating experiences together. Whilst I still value my friendships and care about my friends deeply, I have now placed myself at the centre of my universe and try to put myself first. I focus on my own life, the things I want to do and the goals I want to achieve. Whilst people leaving my life will still hurt, my life won’t completely fall apart as it once would. I won’t be lost, looking for somewhere else to go, as I still have my own life and plenty of things to do.
I have tried to tackle my loneliness as well. I deleted all the apps, as they were causing more harm than good. I have started to accept the idea that I will never find someone. Every time I work with the idea of “some day”, it just causes impatience and pain. I keep wondering how long will I have to wait, and get upset that it still hasn’t happen. Crossing out the idea altogether is helping me refocus. Of course, I still find myself craving intimacy and affection and would love someone to share my life with. But removing the idea entirely helps me to dwell less on it and focus on other things. Should someone enter my life, I will be open to a relationship. I’m just trying not to think about it anymore.
There is still a long road ahead of me, I am by no means done here. There is a lot of work to do, and I have plans on ways to improve my body image issues whilst I continue to care for myself mentally. I have found myself feeling more positive about my life than I have in a long time, and I will do everything to keep this energy and love myself as much as I can.
