Mental Health: Learning to Love Myself, Again

Our modern obsession with discussing our mental health issues seems like half of its own problem. We are trying so hard to “solve” our mental health issues that we’re only stressing ourselves further from intrapersonal peace. At least, this seems to be a challenge I face when learning to love myself, again. And again. And again and again and again.

Time Spent with Myself

“What time?” I want to ask. “I barely have time for my responsibilities, much less time to spend with myself.” Which is a pretty common experience for most of us, right? When I think of spending time with myself, I’m listing in my head all the fun hobbies I’d rather be doing instead of my day-to-day obligations.

The wise perspective, however, would recognize my own privileges and humble myself by acknowledging – we are always spending time with ourselves. And every one of those moments is valuable, despite them not being filled with pleasurable activities. How entitled am I to think washing dishes, folding laundry, and working out isn’t sufficiently fulfilling to disregard as moments “spent with myself.”

One might think that self-love is making time to spend on your own doing the things you want to do. The meditative, hippie bullshit truth though is that true self-love is loving the moments you spend on your own doing things you don’t want to do. And just to clarify – I haven’t perfected this mindset at all! At least… not yet.

The Process of Self-Love

If you find yourself swirling in your intrusive self-deprecating thoughts, well, you’re just like me. And if you find yourself acknowledging that this toxic spiral is unhealthy and you need to take steps out of it, well, you’re even more like me. And if you’re sickened and annoyed by your own inability to do so no matter how much healthier your lifestyle choices have become, and therapy you’ve gone to, and self-healing you’ve done, well, you might as well be me!

So what do we do now? Where do we go from here?

It’s about time I just choose to find it comical that the answer is the same as it’s always been – do it again. You’ve looked up to the top of that stinking analogical mountain from your rock bottom, and you’ve taken a step forward, and you’ve taken another step forward, and you keep taking those steps till you’re surprisingly looking ahead rather than up, until suddenly the hike gets easier and you don’t realize you’re going down again. Guess what? Do it again.

You look behind you, and there’s a mountain. You look ahead of you, and there’s another mountain. You’re in a valley. You’re feeling small. But you remember moments of clear skies and open air, you can place yourself on that summit at least once before. So what’s that mean? Do it again.

And so I’m feeling bad for myself, exhausted from having hiked up, and down, and up, and down, why can’t I just find a plateau that isn’t in this valley? Why can’t I just stay at the top? Life doesn’t work that way. Drink some water, eat a snack bar, and then what? Do it again.

No, I’m not going to link the YouTube video to Miley’s inspirational song, you know it already. But I’ll link another that makes me giggle.

We’re All Liars

The reel you see on Instagram or TikTok with the caption “POV: you found inner peace after alcoholism” in which the first clip is a sickly looking woman in sweats drinking vodka straight out of the bottle, and then there’s a montage of her twirling around in beautiful places with free-flowing hair and skirt and a crochet halter top… it’s not real. Her experience is real, her story is real, but the narrative interpreted from her life is an over-simplification.

Do you really think she has never again had an emotional breakdown? Or another vice like vaping, or coffee, or the gym? Or hell, a relapse? Do you truly believe that each of her relationships in her day-to-day are stable, that her financial situation is entirely secure, that she never blames herself for making mistakes or spends too much time editing her videos due to insecurities of how she looks?

This isn’t to say she hasn’t made any progress, quite the opposite – she is actively moving forward, and will continue to for the rest of her life. She will never reach a point where she can throw her hands up and say, “Welp! I got here. I love myself and everything’s perfect. I can stop working on myself now.”

I’m a liar, too – the picture posted initially on this blog post? Check it out: took me ten minutes just to pick one.

Does that make me a bad person, or a toxic person? Maybe. I’d venture to say that sure, any behavior that’s focused on these superficial ideals rather than connecting to nature and living life to the fullest is counter-intuitive to being authentically “one” with myself. Well, whatever. At least I don’t delude myself by thinking that that behavior is important, or necessary.

Don’t get caught up in those trivial details of our capitalist system’s demands – but don’t blame yourself for being an average person, either. God forbid you follow the masses in your attempt to survive, eh?

Mental Health isn’t the DSM-5

The DSM-5 isn’t a rule book, it’s a guide. A very useful guide, granted, for psychology professionals to interpret patterns of practical and mental behavior and deduce from them an explanation of origin. Being diagnosed doesn’t have to put you in a box or label you, any more than your hair color or height does. If applying the terminologies of the text helps you better understand the actions you need to take to improve yourself, great! But developing entire identities around those concepts can limit your self-discovery.

“Mental health,” as we now call it, isn’t solely about childhood trauma, biochemical disorders, and toxic relational dynamics. It can also be about – precisely this prompt’s topic – spending time with yourself, and making decisions about who you are, and who you want to be.

While my credentials in the topic are lacking – I was a political science major, not a psychology student – it is precisely my desire to distance myself from the institutional oppression of imposed rules and definitions that I feel obligated to voice these opinions.

I’ve been told by laymen and mental health professionals alike that I may have OCD, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, ADHD, autism, and so on. The only solutions I’ve been given have been to have more confidence in myself (+ coping mechanisms) or get medicated.

Seeing as I aspire to have as natural a state of being in life as possible and thus reject pill-taking culture for myself, I guess I’m stuck swirling in what it means to try to love myself in this self-hating society.

Never forget to ask yourself in your worst moments: who is benefiting from my self-deprecation? Who profits from my negative emotions? Can it be that, by loving myself despite the sociocultural influences telling me otherwise, I am actively practicing radical ideology? Could loving myself be the change I wish to see in the world?

Thought about putting an ass pic at the end here cause, yaknow, sex sells. But decided it was counter-intuitive to my points. Do you respect that, or are you bitter? – ha! Let me know in the comments.