"I literally can't stand you"

You are so ugly - You are fat - Your body is disgusting - Nobody will ever want to be with you - You are too much - You are extra - You are so annoying - Stop talking -  Shut up - You're not smart - You are such an idiot - Dumbass - You can't do one thing right - You are not good at anything - You suck - You don't do enough - You're not even a good Mom - You're a horrible sister - You're a terrible friend - You're a horrible daughter - Everyone is better than you - I literally can't stand you - You're such a pussy - Nobody likes you

Can you imagine hearing someone say those things about you, or to you?  What if the person saying those things to you, is actually YOU?  

NEVER in a million years would I say those things to anyone in the world! Not even the people who have crushed my soul. I said it to myself though. Daily.  Several times a day.  

In addition, let me just unpack some shit that has gone on in the last couple of years. 

On November 1st of 2020, My Dad died after his battle with cancer.

Two days later my granddaughter Micah Rose was born to my 18 year old son and his 18 year old girlfriend who all lived with us.

In January of 2022 my son and his girlfriend broke up and decided to live separately, co-parenting Micah at 18 years old.  It's very difficult to help guide your young son through huge emotional life changes, especially when you're going through them yourself.    

At the end of February, 2021 Abe and I split up and he moved to Boothbay. The house would need to go on the market. 

The house needed a lot of work to in order to be sold. I remodeled the bathroom (Ben helped), added a barn board accent wall to finished basement (Caelan helped), replaced the floor in my bedroom, built a 4x8 floating deck on the front of the house, and painted the outside doors.  I replaced a throttle cable in the riding lawn mower after push mowing for several weeks (6 hour job) as I waited for the part on back order.  The snowblower also broke down during that first winter.  I  packed all of Abe's stuff myself into boxes and stored them in the storage closet because he never came to get anything until much later.

In August of 2021 I started a new job.

On November 3rd of 2021, the divorce was final.  

I sold the house in April of 2022. I was able to rent it until I could find somewhere to live.

In my limited spare time I looked at houses, condos, and applied for rentals.

On June 20th of 2022 Mom had a massive stroke and we had to make the decision to take her off life support. She lived for 7 days in a vegetative state.  My sister and I were there all week watching her die.  Slowly.  

In August of 2022 I bought a condo and literally had to handle packing up the entire house myself.  I cleaned out the shed and all the storage without taking any time off from work.  What a fucking nightmare.  

At the end of August, 2022, Caelan, Micah and I moved into the condo

And THEN, on October 13th my dear friend Jan died unexpectedly.  

It's like........can I get 5 fucking minutes without something happening here?

These are pretty big life events happening all in a short period of time.  I'm not telling you this for sympathy or any of that.  I'm telling you because that's a lot of heavy stuff to deal with on top of already hating yourself.  BUT...you can get through hard things and be whole again, whether you believe it or not.  

I'm not going to lie, after reading all the positive comments, messages, texts, calls etc from the last blog, I felt very overwhelmed and actually ugly cried a few times!  To hear that I inspired someone, or that my writing touched someone in a positive way, or resonated with them sent me for a bit of a loop.  Especially the part where people said they never would have known anything was wrong, and remember me as being so positive and upbeat all the time.  

Honestly and embarrassingly (after all the work I've done on myself) I felt like nobody was going to read the blog, let alone get anything from it.  Why would they?  (That's negative Nelly talking.  She's a bad egg.)    

It was hard to hear all the positive things, but really awesome to hear also.  Why does everything have to seem so complicated and conflicting?   

I've always been my own worst enemy, yet I have to also be my biggest cheerleader and advocate too!  The lines get blurred sometimes.  I am the only one that can do it.  Your friends and family can tell you how wonderful you are and really show you they love you and help you believe good things about yourself, but if YOU don't believe it, it just doesn't stick. 

I didn't even realize I was doing it until the counselor I spoke of previously, noticed how I speak about and to myself in our first session.  She called me out every time I spoke negatively about myself.  The goal was for me to recognize it and stop it in its tracks, preferably before it came out of my mouth.  Initially, she would remind me of what I said several times in each session.  Then I would say it and catch it myself before she could say anything.  Then toward the end of my sessions it wouldn't even come up.  That doesn't mean the thoughts weren't there, it just means I was controlling them better and not saying it out loud.  It was a step in the right direction. Catching yourself is the the first step.  Not saying it out loud and limiting your negative thoughts and even saying something positive instead, is DOING the work!  

If you can relate to what I've said above, the first thing you NEED to do right this very minute, is make the decision to stop the negative self talk.  Then commit to doing it.  It's hard work and it's constant and everyday at first.  Then it gets less and less.  The more you stop yourself from saying and thinking the negative things, the more you start to believe the positive stuff.  Keep in mind, I'm still catching myself to this day.  The work never ends.  Learn to love the work.  

The first thing I did was work to catch myself.  Then I read a book by Shad Helmstetter, PhD about stopping negative self talk.  At the end of the book there was a website where you could sign up to listen to positive self talk on your phone or computer for $20/month.  I signed up and for about a month or two I listened while I went to the gym, cleaned the house, or while sitting around.  I listened almost everyday. 

Another thing I did to change my mind set was mirror work.  Hear me out...............

Mirror work is super cringy and I had to force myself to do it.  It's when you look yourself in the mirror and say nice things to yourself - "I am" statements.  

Mine were:

I am stronger than any storm

I am valuable

I am a fucking bad ass

I choose to feel good

I respect myself

I am beautiful inside and out

I am lovable

I am worthy of genuine love

I trust myself

I face every challenge with a smile

I am proud of myself

I deserve to feel strong

I believe in myself

Today, it's fairly easy to look in the mirror and say those things and believe them....mostly.  Initially I cried the second I opened my mouth and struggled to say them everyday for a while.  I was actually mad at myself for not being able to stop crying about it and wondered why.  When you hate yourself for so long, then you force yourself to say nice things to your own face, it gets emotional.  It feels embarrassing, awkward, cringy and wrong.  BUT.....it's actually the right thing to do and it's so important to your mental health.

If you can change your mindset and learn to control your thoughts about yourself, you're way ahead of the game!  Remember, only you can make the change.  No one can do it for you.

By the way, I had the positive affirmation (I am) statements written on colored paper in Sharpie and hung them on the wall directly above my computer screens in my home office where I would see them everyday.  I also had a big mirror in there so I could look in it and read the statements each day.  

I also read two other books.  The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer and Unfuck Yourself by Gary John Bishop.  I actually took notes during the last one.  Both awesome books in my opinion.  I've read several self-help/inspiring/motivating books since then too.  

I still find myself thinking negative things about myself in my head and I can usually catch myself from saying too many negative things, but it's still a work in progress and likely always will be.  I'm okay with that.  As long as I keep doing the work and keep moving forward, I can deal with it.  Even today I find myself scolding myself if I catch the negative thoughts.  You can still look in the mirror and tell yourself "No, I don't do this anymore or I am not doing this to myself today, or any other day, so stop it".  Then say some positive things to yourself like "You are a good human being and people love you."  If you're lucky enough to have true, trusting friends that you know will give it to you straight, and they love you through and through, believe them! If you can't believe your opinion of yourself, believe theirs.  

Someone that means the world to me said, after I was being a complete asshole to myself out loud, "give yourself some grace, will you?"  I remind myself of that whenever the negative creeps in.  Give yourself some grace!  Such great advice.  We've all been through something.  The best thing we can do is handle ourselves with a little more GD grace.  Be kind to yourself.   

Give yourself the same advice you would give to your very best friend.  If you heard your best friend saying those negative things to, or about themselves what would you say to them?  Say that to yourself!  

You know you best!  After all, you will be spending the rest of your life with yourself.  You had better learn to love YOU!  You will be there to catch yourself if you fall.  YOU will be there for you!  Sure, you have support from family and friends hopefully, but only you can do the work and make the changes.  

Keep your heart open at all times.  Do not close your heart because of something that happened to you in the past.  Don't lose who you are because of stuff you had to go through.  Loving yourself and others has been - and always will be - the answer.  

"Hate does not have enough energy to destroy love." - Eric Thomas