Raspberry Iced M

I have to be honest about something.

I don’t like myself very much.

It’s not a character flaw. It’s a pattern that makes sense given some of the things I’ve lived through.

I don’t dislike myself because I am secretly awful.

I dislike myself because I learned to see myself through the lens of harm, failure and fear, instead of context, growth and humanity.

I have collapsed my worst actions into my entire identity. Instead of thinking, “I did harmful things. I regret them. I’m responsible for repairing what I can,” my brain jumps to, “This is who I am. This is what I am.” And when shame goes unresolved, it stops being about behavior and turns into self-contempt. I don’t hate myself for the things I’ve done. I hate myself because I believe I am the doing. And that’s a brutal place to live.

I don’t allow myself the mercy I extend to everyone else. I understand nuance when it comes to other people. I understand trauma, unmet needs, fear, attachment wounds, and exhaustion. But when it comes to me? I go straight to sentencing. No mitigating circumstances. No developmental context. No nervous system explanations. Just the gavel. And that internal double standard has eroded affection for myself over time. Anyone treated that way eventually becomes someone I wouldn’t be interested in being around – even in my own head.

I learned that love is conditional, fragile, and easily revoked. Somewhere along the way, love became tied to being good enough, not messing up, not being “too much,” not hurting anyone, and staying useful, stable and agreeable. So now, when I look at myself, I don’t ask, “Am I human?” Instead I ask, “Am I still allowed to exist without being rejected?” That makes liking myself feel unsafe, because if I soften toward myself, it feels like I’m letting my guard down in a world that has proven it can cause wounds.

I mistake hyper-accountability for integrity. I care deeply about integrity, but my version has become punitive instead of principled. True integrity says, “I tell the truth, take responsibility, and continue growing.” My version has quietly and gradually morphed into, “If I ever fail again, I don’t deserve peace.” And living under that rule has created constant self-surveillance. And no one likes someone they have to police 24 hours a day, not even themselves.

I am grieving who I thought I would be. I had an internal picture of the mom I wanted to be, the woman I thought I could be, and the life that would make sense of everything. When the reality didn’t match the picture, the grief didn’t get processed. I just redirected it at myself. And self-dislike often begins as unacknowledged grief that just wears armor.

I don’t dislike myself because I am irredeemable. I dislike myself because I am honest, reflective, remorseful, and have a strong moral compass. I do not yet know how to hold accountability without annihilating myself.

What I am learning is that the bridge between self-hatred and self-love is something I have missed. It’s called self-respect. It’s calm. Unromantic. Firm. It’s not, “I’m amazing.” It’s, “I will not abandon myself.”

1. I am trying to stop narrating my life as a prosecution. Self-respect isn’t, “There’s the full list of evidence that proves I am defective.” Instead, it’s, “What happened happened. Now what is the responsible next step?” I don’t rewrite the past kindly. I just stop reopening the case every day. If my thoughts are not solving anything, I don’t argue with it. I just disengage.
2. I am keeping small promises to myself, even when no one is watching. Self-love says, “I matter,” but self-respect just means that my word matters. I try to do the things I say I am going to do, even if it’s as simple as drinking water, or going to bed on time, or finishing a book. I don’t do this perfectly, but I try to do it consistently enough so that I can trust myself again.
3. I am trying to stop using pain as proof. Hurting as much as I am hurting does not mean I am bad. Pain tells me that something is wrong, not that I am wrong. So instead of asking myself what is wrong with me, I am trying to ask myself what happened to me, or what need went unmet, or what fear is active in the moment.
4. I am trying to tell the truth in real time, even when it is uncomfortable. Not necessarily confessional truth. Just present-moment truth. Things like, “I don’t know how to answer that yet,” or, “I don’t have the capacity to show up at my best right now,” or, “I am overwhelmed and need to pause this.” Self-respect does not demand eloquence. It demands honesty without theatrics.
5. I have stopped rehearsing how awful I am. I don’t replay conversations to punish myself. I don’t imagine how others judge me for sport. I don’t mentally practice shame “just in case.” Because it isn’t helpful to mentally degrade myself as a form of vigilance.
6. I am working to allow consequences without expanding them into my identity. I am learning to accept that some people won’t trust me again, some doors are closed, and some relationships are forever changed. I just draw the line at, “Therefore, I am permanently unworthy of peace.” Consequences are events. But identity is not up for retroactive sentencing.
7. I am consistently choosing behaviors that don’t make tomorrow harder. Before self-love, self-respect asks, “Will this cost me more later?” And then I decide accordingly, with neutrality, not heroics. No self-flagellation. No grand vows. Just fewer self-betrayals.

Self-love is at the end of the line. Self-respect comes first. Then self-trust. Then self-compassion. And eventually, affection. I am not behind. I am exactly at the stage where integrity is being built from the inside, not performed.