The Power of Loving Yourself
One of the first things I think you learn when it comes to loving yourself, is to take care of your needs and wants. The way that I had come to learn this had not been easy. I want to talk about when I had been younger, and i am going to discuss a time that I felt like i loved myself. I had weighed around 138 pounds, felt good about myself, and had met my now husband. These had been great things in my mind and to add to that I had gotten pregnant, I was going to be a new mom! What was supposed to be this great and amazing moment in my life had found the pregnant me craving Reece’s all the time, so during my pregnancy i had gained almost 60 pounds. So unfortunately, that took away a lot of my joy and made me really unhappy.
Out of no where my self esteem had flunked, and I found myself calling myself cruel names like “fat” and I kept telling myself that I was no longer beautiful. Due to all the negative self talk and the feelings that i was having, I suddenly found my mental health going down hill and I was struggling. Around the time my daughter was turning two, I had started to feel that I needed to do something, and my mother in law had given me some motivation by planning a trip to the Outer Banks. She had suggested that we work together and join Weight Watchers. I had taken this seriously and was able to lose 10 pounds! I felt so good about myself and the things that I was accomplishing. After the trip though, my motivation lacked and I found myself unable to continue and gaining weight. Through some of these challenging times, my husband and I found ourselves in a rut and decided to take a break from one another.
They say during your darkest time, you sometimes find the light that you need. I started to lose weight, I was down to around 150 pounds, and then suddenly I had a seizure due to being bit by a spider. Due to all the tests that they started to run and things that I followed up with, it was then found that I had Fibromyalgia. My husband had started to reconcile with me and we started to work through this new diagnosis however it had me in such a dark place that I had started to put weight back on, my mental health once again was down hill, and I was not in a place to care for myself. It was during this time that I found myself hospitalized for my mental health and agreeing to start working within group therapy to form new ideas about myself and really take care of me. My life was finally coming back together, or so I thought. I had found out I was pregnant, my biggest supporter passed away, and I was spiraling.
After this had happened, I decided to start opening up to my mom more because I recognized my need for support and she became a huge support for me. It was hard at first, but eventually I had started to also use emotional support animals, my newest addition is my new cat. Over time as I started to work more, getting more involved in work things, and started to make more friends, I started to feel better about myself. With encouragement and other opportunities I started to form new ideas around who I was.
My name is Christine, and I am in recovery with my mental health. I put the work in daily to remind myself that I love me. I love me at any size, any moment, and all the time, even when I have bad days. I have worked on my self-esteem and have been able to maintain my recovery for xxx amount of years. I feel that as I have ventured into the world of peer support, I have found myself growing in many areas. I have come to see that I am sweet, kind, and caring person. I have learned how to set boundaries , how to love myself, and my mental health is better now than it’s ever been.