I Stopped Speaking to Myself Like an Enemy

Dear Delyara, I always thought self-love sounded vague and slightly embarrassing. It sounded like something people said after buying expensive candles and journaling in perfect handwriting. It did not sound like something for people like me — people who had learned to function through criticism, shame, and pressure. I did not know how to love myself. I only knew how to control myself. Then one day I realized something that should have been obvious much earlier: the voice I used on myself was crueler than any voice I would tolerate from another person. If a stranger had spoken to me the way I spoke to myself, I would have called it abuse. But because it was internal, I called it discipline. That broke something open in me. Since then, self-love has become much less glamorous and much more real. It looks like not insulting myself for being tired. It looks like feeding myself before I “deserve” it. It looks like not forcing productivity just to prove I’m still worth something. It looks like resting without making a legal case for why I’m allowed to. I still don’t float around loving every part of myself every day. But I am no longer committed to my own humiliation. That is a kind of love too.