The First Time I Apologized to Myself for All of the Self-Hate

One of the traps easiest to fall into is associating the number on the scale with my self-worth. It can lead to a lot of negative feelings toward myself and a lot of hurting. The simplest sentences are often the hardest ones to listen to.

I am more than numbers can describe.

The numbers on the scale only represent how much gravity affects the house, which homes my true self.

I am enough.

Every day, there is a barrage of information telling us how we must look and how we must behave to be deemed beautiful. For someone with a mental illness, those messages come with strong undertones of, “You are never going to be enough the way you are no matter how hard you try.” Each calorie consumed, each offhanded comment about feeling a “little crazy” or about “bipolar weather” just hammers home that message.

Around the time I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I had a lot of habits which tore at my self-worth. I quit eating because I would never be beautiful with curves. I self-harmed because I would never be accepted as someone who was “overly emotional.” I was never happy with who I was because who I was was never good enough.

I remember the moment the words “bipolar disorder” slipped out of my psychiatrist’s mouth. It felt like a death sentence. It would no longer ever be an option for me to be accepted or feel beautiful. I couldn’t live with that.

I looked myself in the mirror recently and almost couldn’t recognize myself. Who I was on the inside didn’t match the outside. I sat down and cried once more, the weight of imperfection forcing me to examine all of my insecurities. I did something I’ve never done before: I apologized to myself.

It wasn’t that my outsides didn’t match the inside. It was that I didn’t match society. I guess I never have but that doesn’t mean I’m not good enough. It means I’m different. Different has never been synonymous with inferior. However, somewhere along the line, I convinced myself there was a divide between what would give me happiness and who I was.

I am enough. You are enough. Even when we don’t believe it for ourselves, it’s true.

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