I don’t love myself and I think that’s okay

I often find myself awake at in the early hours of the morning in a state of perpetual state of self loathing. Whenever I get talking to people about my early morning mood swings, I often get told the same thing: “you just need to love yourself”.

It is sound advice. In an ideal world, any human should be able to wake up and look themselves in the mirror without being even slightly disgusted at who’s staring back at them. After all, how is anybody else supposed to love you if you can’t even love yourself? But for myself and I’m sure many others, it’s not quite that easy.

Simply put, I was a bad person for an embarrassingly long time. I had cheated on my girlfriends, human beings who selflessly devoted their time, effort, energy and patience to spending their days with me. I had been a two-faced, fair-weather friend to people who would’ve walked on Lego and upturned plugs for three miles to help me with any problem I had. I was, and probably to many people still am, a genuinely detestable 14–20-year-old boy.

In 2018, as a 22-year-old eternally tired university student who is riddled with anxiety, I genuinely believe I am paying the price for being — frankly — a massive douchebag. I’m a firm believer in the idea of karma, I believe that someday, everyone gets their comeuppance. I was aware back in 2011 when I cheated on my first girlfriend that I’d eventually pay for it, but I told myself “I’d deal with it later”. I was also aware in 2013 that having sex with someone whilst also trying to get something started with a girl I really liked would get me smacked in the nose by the righteous fist of karmic justice, but I again told myself “I’d deal with it later”. I also said the same thing about every 9/11, HIV/AIDs, cancer, poverty or generally ‘edgy’ joke I wrote on my Facebook to be a ‘badass’.

I made the executive decision to stop being an asshole and turn my life around in 2015 after I was unfaithful to my then girlfriend. That’s when I started looking in the mirror and not being happy with the person looking back at me. I think I’ve done an okay job, but the process has rendered me a emotionally frail, anxious and depressive mess. Coincidentally the last few years have also being incredibly rough for me, but as I said, I’m firmly into the idea that karma come for everybody and if this is what I have to go through to redeem myself in my own eyes then, so be it.

I don’t deserve anybody else’s love until I am a better human being. I don’t love myself, but that’s okay. I’m working on it and that’s the best I can do right now.