I can only imagine the challenges one faces in loving me. The real me. When I have ups, they are way up. When I have my downs, they are way down. I can love patiently and with my whole heart and I can feel pain so incredibly deep. I can empathize with others that are hurting, and I often feel their pain.
I have lived my entire life battling depression and anxiety. When I was child, I didn’t know what it was that I was “feeling”. How could I? Especially since most adults didn’t understand it. I can remember my older brother getting frustrated with me when I would have an outburst when we would be playing with our friends. What he didn’t realize is the mean remarks or the feelings of exclusion I felt and the pain inside as a result would be so overwhelming that they would come out as anger. And, I did not understand how to express that pain that was so deep. So, a challenge to show me love? I am sure it was.
The pain I often felt would turn into fear and sometimes numbness. I would try desperately to act and be like everyone else. All while attempting to stamp out what I was experiencing on the inside. Memories, from my high school years, of a knife against my flesh and me contemplating whether I was ready to be done with it all, still flash in my head today. And there would be two other instances during those youthful days that I would almost go through it. From those watching on the outside, not understanding why I struggled, it must have been difficult for them to show me the love I needed.
There is another memory of me talking with my mother in a bathroom and I am crying because of all the emotions, all the pain, all the feelings of being lost were too much for me to handle. I wonder now that I have my own children what she must have been thinking, and I wonder at the pain she must have felt in not knowing how to truly be able to help me. Especially since we were living in a time where you didn’t talk about such things.
Years would go by. I would drop out of college. Get married, have a child. Go through a divorce. Go back to college and get my degree. Get remarried and have three more children. And have a roller coaster of ups and downs, before I would finally understand what it was that I was struggling with. Finally, understanding and having a name for it and looking back at my life and realizing I wasn’t crazy, was liberating. And although I know it was hard for some to truly love me. I could start to forgive others. I could also start to forgive myself and the guilt I had. I could finally believe there wasn’t anything wrong with me.
After my last two babies were born, my twins, I sank back into the deep dark of my depression and anxiety and I realized I needed to do something about it. “My husband must be a saint,” I would often tell myself because of the crying, the moodiness and at times my anger was most likely overwhelming for him to handle. And yet he still seems to love me.
I have often felt guilty for the way I am. My reactions to things at times I am sure seemed over the top. Being anxious over something I had no control over must have seemed silly to others. Trying to practice patience with our children, when I had no patience for even myself and what I perceived at the time as my own weakness, was and sometimes is a challenge for me. Lashing out from fear and feeling lost from not knowing who I was, seemed to always come across as anger.
And the guilt. Oh, that horrible guilt tends to creep in at the hardest times. I want so desperately to be a great mother and wife. And on the days when I am at my deepest lows, I know I must be lacking in some way. And yet, they all still love me.
Loving someone, all of them, even their flaws. We may not like their flaws at times, but we still love them, unconditionally. Loving even when they are at their lows. Isn’t that what love is all about?
Understanding this concept of love has not come easy for me. Not that I don’t love unconditionally. Being able to love someone all of them, and whole heartedly has never been difficult for me. I believe it is that part of my depression and anxiety that transformed into something beautiful. Because of it, I can see other people’s pain. Because of it I can see through masks of anger or flashes of pettiness and see their own insecurities and can still at times show love to that person. I can be more understanding of their own difficulties.
Where I sometimes struggle with unconditional love, is knowing that people love me in the same way. How could anyone love me like that? This has been a question I have often asked myself. So much so that when someone sees the good and amazing things in me, I question it at times. So many people who I have loved over the years are no longer in my life, because of life. Or because, and this is something I am realizing, they were not deserving of having my love.
Now that last statement may seem pretentious or prideful so let me explain that. Those who were not deserving of having my love were those who did not know how to truly love me and all the beautiful parts of me, including my depression and anxiety. Depression and anxiety are not weaknesses. They are not flaws. They are a part of who I am. They alone do not define me.
I can show love to those who may seem unlovable to others because I can see past the façade of anger and those things that would warrant someone as “unlovable”. I can be more understanding of others when they are struggling with life. I can empathize so deeply with a mother who lost her son to suicide even though I never met her or her son because of this beautiful and often painful part of who I am. And grieve alongside her albeit from a distance. And for her.
Yes, there is the dark side of depression and anxiety that plagues me. And it creeps in often. But I do not apologize for it. I will not apologize for something that is a part of who I am. Even though I may be difficult to understand or difficult for some to love. It doesn’t matter. Because to those that see the beautiful aspects of it all together do love me. Which I am sure seems challenging to understand. But those that jump all in, difficult parts and all, are the ones deserving of my love. Even when I don’t see that myself.
I won’t apologize for being difficult to love. Because the complicated part of me, is also the part of me that can love so deeply. It is the part of me that has the deepest understanding and empathy for others. The complicated part of me is what makes the most beautiful part of me.
I would not be able to love others as I do if I didn’t have what others perceive as a weakness. Instead I am learning that because of it I can have a strength that others may not have. I can show the world kindness and love even when it seems difficult to do so! From my deepest pain comes the most beautiful parts of who I am! So, yes, I may be challenging to love, but along with the difficult is also the most beautiful.
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