Forgive yourself for your weakness

I believe the most important thing I’ve learned in life, I learned when I was 14 and depressed. I learned that it’s okay to fail, it’s okay not to live up to your own expectations. It’s okay to say the wrong things, it’s okay to feel wrong, ugly, awkward, excluded, lonely, unsuccessful, weak. It’s just human to feel fragile and vulnerable sometimes.

There were many reasons why I ended up in that hole, but it can probably be summed up as that I didn’t want to be me. I was ashamed of myself and ashamed of feeling bad. It was more than being sad; it was that I couldn’t find anything to look forward to, that I couldn’t see any possibility of feeling anything good.

I believed that the reason I felt bad was that there was something wrong with me, so I sought help. I expected the therapist to dig up what was “wrong” with me. But she didn’t judge anything and found nothing wrong. I thought she was a terrible therapist. When I apologized for being there and taking up time from someone with real problems, she replied: “You are brave and strong for seeking help; many people don’t manage that.” When I told her about things I was ashamed of and had failed at, she said that many people feel that way and that it was beautiful that I could express myself so well and be so reflective. Over the course of a year, she chipped away at my self-loathing. By forgiving myself for what I was ashamed of, I changed, and the darkness lifted.

I learned to be kind to myself. Being kind to yourself isn’t about spoiling yourself with expensive status items to impress others. It’s about liking yourself even if no one else is impressed by you. It’s a little about treating yourself to something nice when you feel like it, taking it easy when you need it, and doing things that make you feel good. But above all, it’s about not being too hard on yourself, allowing yourself to fail, and not punishing yourself for your flaws and weaknesses. What feels like a weakness is often just human and natural.

It’s probably not very helpful to tell someone in that hole to “be kind to yourself.” But hearing about others who have felt bad and pulled themselves out of it might help. And if you manage to learn to be kind and forgiving toward yourself, I believe it can act like a vaccine so that no hole ever gets too deep.