Taught to Self Hate
I used to hate myself. I was taught to have myself. I was taught that who I was– who God created me to be– wasn’t good enough.
I hated the width of my nose. The White and White presenting girls at my elite private high school were getting nose jobs for their 16th birthday and boob jobs for graduation gifts. We were taught to hate our ever-growing and changing bodies. And I couldn’t wait to get my nose job. To narrow it. To make it a cute lil tip.
I hated the gap in my teeth. For yearsss in pictures when I smiled, I refused to show my teeth. I half smiled. Fake smiled. Closed mouths. It wasn’t until my very late teens or early 20s that I began to show my teeth.
I hated the way I laughed. Actually, I loved the way I laughed but was told by “loved ones” that I laughed too loudly. I started to laugh differently. Fake. People noticed. Well, not people but close friends. Side note: thank you to my close friends for showing up for me and reflecting back the truth of me to me when the people who were supposed to couldn’t and didn’t.
I hated the way I sneezed because it, too, was “too loud” and “unladylike”. So I changed the way I sneezed to sound more “lady like”.
I hated the way I simply was and took up space. I began to hate who God created me to be because the other people who “loved” me hated themselves and wanted me to hate me, too.
I loved my curly hair but was told I should hate it. “[Your friend] can wear her hair natural but not you. It doesn’t look good on you,” my “loved one” told me. So for years I permed my hair. And finally, silently, I stopped. I blew it straight and was fawned after. “Your hair is your crown” but a short crown is no less a crown. My hair isn’t my worth. (Note to self: write a blog post about my hair journey.)
I hated the fullness of my cheeks and the width of my nose and the gap in my teeth and my double chins and my uneven eyebrows and the deep chocolate brown of my skin. I distracted others from my face by wearing low cut shirts. “Surely if they notice my breasts they won’t notice me, I thought.” Deep exhale. Deep inhale. Deep exhale.
I hated myself and I began to hate those who hated themselves and who “loved” me and loved to see me hate myself. I hated myself and I began to hate those who hated themselves and who “loved” me and loved to see me hate myself. And one mo’ again. I hated myself and I began to hate those who hated themselves and who “loved” me and loved to see me hate myself.
And then, at some point, I realized that I hated hating myself. I got real sick and tired of being sick and tired. I hated the incongruence I felt. I hated the discomfort of not being who I knew I was meant to be. I hated playing small and less than. I hated seeing people who proclaimed to love God not live well and who wanted me to follow them not living well, too. They certainly didn’t say they weren’t living well, but I saw it. I felt it. I knew it.
I didn’t know it then, but I know that now. I wouldn’t have called it self hate then, but I can call it self hate now.
So instead of living how others wanted me to live– which was hating myself and hating other people– I began to live how I wanted to live. How I knew I could live.
There are two things I will always credit my parents for. There are more, but these are the most important.
- For taking care of their physical bodies well.
- For introducing me to God.
But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
1 Corinthians 13:13 MSG
Between trust, hope and love, love is the best?!
I see why now. There’s another verse that basically says don’t trust in the God you can’t see if you don’t love your brother or sister you can see because if you do, you don’t know love. You can read about it in 1 John 4:20 here.
Practiced and Trained Myself to Love Myself
Love repaired me. Love healed me. Love transformed me. Love made me new.
Not the “love” of those who hate themselves and wanted me to hate myself, too. Not the “love” of those who reveled in me hating myself.
Let me be clear: Those who loved me hating myself hate me loving myself. We’re hardly in relationship. I love them from a distance. I pray for them and wish them well from a healthy distance.
I could go on and on and on and on but instead, I’m going to go on a walk. Because going on a trail walk on Christmas day is truly the healing love I need. And deserve. And Imma hang out on the tree swing, too!
What is love you ask? It ain’t struggle love. It ain’t “love”. It isn’t us disliking or hating ourselves, wishing we’d be different. Real love, true love, is this, per 1 Corinthians 13 The Message:
The Way of Love
13 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
2 If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.
3-7 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
8-10 Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
11 When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
12 We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
13 But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
So as we begin this brand spanking new year, I gotta ask:
How will you love yourself more? How will you transform yourself through self love?
PS- I wrote this post on Christmas Day that I spent solo dolo. 20 outta 10 recommend!
