infinite shades of blue (journal part I)

~38~

the question that's been nagging me my whole life is
how do you fall in love with yourself?

how do you stop assuming the worst of you?
how do you say kind things in the mirror?
how do you gather the guts to advertise your face on instagram stories posting pretentious selfies?

how and when do you put down the blades?

I have hated my body
my mind
my entire being my whole life

I don't mean to
and most importantly
I don't want to

I feel like maybe when my illness fired up again and the lights went out for a second I should've stopped to take a deep breath

or when tears were soaking my face as my fingernails grazed down my arms I should've put them around me instead

and all those times I've told myself I'd never be good enough
I'd never deserve to walk into a room assured that I belong there

I've gone to school almost every day for the past 11 years and nobody has ever told me how important it is to love my own fucking self

my point is that
before you can say good morning to every person passing you by on your way to school
before you can open your eyes to be grateful to live another day
before you can listen for hours to your friend crying on the other end
you need to love yourself first

that is literally the base of everything
and why does no one talk about it?

and to make myself clear
I don't mean the kind of love myself when you go around putting everyone else down and crawling up your own ass

I mean the kind of love yourself when you've just had the worst panic attack of your life and you make the rightful decision to leave the place or the person that is bad for your mental health even though the pain it brings is beyond describing

I'm nowhere near to being at peace with myself
and for a very long time I've been convinced that it's normal

it's not

let me say that again

it's not normal to hate your entire being
it's not okay to want to die