A friend of mine Terraflare from fetlife recently wrote this and agreed for me to share it with you, if you have a fetlife profile go on over and say hi, shes real cute.

I was young when this exchange happened, I don’t know how young as it’s one of those moments that is stuck in time for the impact it had on me, the background details aren’t something i can recall due to a lot of my memories from that time being repressed. I was old enough to understand what was being said but young enough not to be able to see the bigger picture.

It was said to me by my mother, who at the time was diagnosed with depression. I think, unfortunately she didn’t feel like she could talk to me about it. She still can’t talk and to this day denies there was ever a problem.

I remember being upset about many different things at the time but i was trying to talk to her about going to see friends as i wanted to get out of the house. Which is when the sentence that has stuck with me for years was said:

‘People can’t love you if you don’t love yourself’

As I’ve got older i think what was happening was she was partially projecting her own fears onto myself, and partially not knowing what to say to try and make me feel better. I don’t hate her, she was going through a lot of shit. But the profound effect of hearing this from my own mother had such a deep impact on my life that to this day i struggle to talk about what happened.

I believed it, it made me feel that my depressive episodes were wrong and that if i wasn’t able to love myself then no one ever would. It makes me feel guilty for feeling low. And it made me feel like my mother was telling me she couldn’t love a daughter who felt like that. It made me even question weather i could love others if i couldn’t love myself, would my perspective of what love is be incorrect?

This is why when i’m in a depressive episode i hold people, even those who are closest to me at arm’s length. If they can see how much i’m hurting, how much i’m struggling and how much i really don’t want to be me in that moment then they’ll stop loving me.

They’ll stop caring.
And they’ll leave me.

This is wrong.

This kind of thinking makes people with mental health issues become other, excluded and not worthy. It’s saying that People with Mental Health issues are not worthy of love which is so so so wrong!

So to anyone reading this who is struggling please know that you are worthy of love, and people do and will love you for who you are. Your illness doesn’t define you but it may be a big or small part of who you are as a whole, and suppressing that to please others will not help you in the long run. Don’t be afraid to show when you are sad or hurting, you don’t have to suffer alone.

And if you know someone or have someone close to you let them know how much you mean to them. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the support network i have of people who love me, and who i love. Just because i don’t always love myself it doesn’t mean i cannot love others and express that.

If you’re there for someone when they’re struggling they won’t forget it, and they’ll love you for it. 🙂

On a slight side note, today is world mental health day. I’d been thinking about writing this for a while but today felt like the right time. A big thing on how we can help progress the care and help we can give people with mental health issues is talking about it rather than sweeping it under the carpet.

Please keep the conversation going and reach out others