How To Start Loving Yourself Again

Content warning:
This post contains content that some readers may find disturbing. Please engage in self-care as you read this post.

Learning to put yourself first is not an easy thing to do when you've been told repeated lies of how unworthy and unloved you are. You turned to people pleasing strategies as a means of survival. You held out a candle of hope, only to have its flame snuffed out over and over again. In the darkness, you lost sight of your own needs and wants, and soon you wouldn't even remember having them in the first place.

It was a revelation to me when I first realized I didn't need another person's approval to make me feel good about myself. While I may not be able to control other people's actions and words, I can control my own response. And if other people do not appreciate me for who I am or for the things I've done for them, then I should learn to love myself the way I want to be loved.

Releasing the burden of my past to move forward

There are those who couldn't help but to curse and swear when they learn about my past. Other than "I'm sorry to hear about this" and "things must have been tough", almost everyone advised me that I should have fought tooth and nail for this and that. "What for?" I would ask, and they would try to justify from their point of view of how I could emerge triumphant.

Well, it just sounds to me that I would be winning a battle but losing the war. The war of my mental health. I wanted out, and I wanted out as soon as possible. I've lost many things including my self-worth, and a long drawn battle would only deepen the resentment and destroy what's left of my sanity.

While it may seem ridiculous to those people, I choose to be grateful for the difficult times, for I know I wouldn't be who I am today without having gone what I've went through. Acceptance of the past circumstances have helped me derived some form of inner harmony. If every bad situation from the past is a heavy stone I'm carrying in my haversack, then letting go of the entire bag may be the best thing ever I've done for myself to propel forward towards to a happier future.

You did the best you could with the knowledge you had in that moment. It's easier to look back at an event and see a better choice or pathway because we already learned from our experience. Hindsight happens after the lesson, so we can't condemn ourselves for not knowing the lesson before we learned it. — Emily Maroutian

And so I learned that to honor myself is to honor my boundaries.

As an autistic person with perfectionist tendencies, I am the most critical of myself. I am often caught in a vicious cycle of underperformance when compared to my own high standards. Just a blog post that you may read in less than 10 minutes would have been edited for the umpteenth time until the time of publishing. I wouldn't expect anything less of myself.

However, this is the same reason I've always become demoralized in past workplaces, caring too much till I exhaust myself to the brink of burnt out, only to be tasked with more responsibilities due to my efficiency. I'm not a machine. I'm a human who would make mistakes when I do not get my restful sleep. I'm a human who is not devoid of emotions no matter how good a poker face I keep.

I recently heard about Christine Miserandino's "Spoons Theory", which depicts our energy as a limited number of spoons each day. With so many things to deal with, I have to learn to be more intentional on how I choose to use my energy and time. After all, time is the only identical resource that every living being have in this world. There are 24 hours each day, and the clock cannot be reset no matter how you choose to spend/waste your hours.

While I may not be very sure of what I like or enjoy doing anymore, I am very certain of the things I do not want in my life. I'm learning to honor my boundaries by saying 'no' to situations of over-commitment as I do not wish to aggravate my recovering physical and mental health. I am now more mindful of my current responsibilities and workload before agreeing to take on additional tasks at home, in the workplace and in social groups.

And I give myself permission to walk away from toxic environments and disrespectful people. For instance, I stay away from social groups that are determined to "fix" or "cure" autistic people. It does not mean I avoid anyone that I disagree with; in fact I find that I learn more when there are perspectives different from mine. I would try to assess the situation as objectively as possible. Keeping myself from harmful situations is a form of self-care and reinforcing my boundaries.

Self-discovery helps me understand what I want in my life

I've been experiencing anhedonia (a symptom of depression). I've lost interest in activities I used to enjoy. In the past years, I would spend hours beadweaving or laughing to Korean variety shows. There was a time I wrote down in my journal all the Korean words and phrases I've picked up... I filled 5 full pages! However these activities no longer bring me joy.

Journaling has helped me to get through periods when I did not feel comfortable talking to anyone. With many thoughts going through my mind simultaneously, it can be difficult to structure and explain my thoughts to someone else. A notebook and a pen are the tools that allow me to pour out my soul and keep me sane during that time. I can still go to work and meet friends without them knowing what I am going through deep inside.

While I don't journal as regularly nowadays, I do return to journaling to practice intentional self-awareness to gain clarity. I escaped from survival mode as I let go of the past and my life experiences improve. James Clear recommended to prioritize up to 5 core values and I noticed my core values have evolved with time. While I used to pride integrity above all else, now what matters to me most is safety. My core values define the boundaries I set, so now I know, as painful it may be at times, I have to walk away from situations that violate my sense of safety.

"If you don't know yourself well enough, you will be pursuing society's idea of success instead of doing more of that brings out the best in you." — Thomas Oppong

Climbing to the top of the career leader is no longer my definition of success.

Being known for my grit, an ex-boss told me that I can achieve anything I set my mind on. However, as an autistic person with difficulty recognizing and understanding social cues, I emulated some toxic workplace behaviors I observed from seemingly successful people, and I didn't like who I was turning out to be. I later found out from these high-flyers that they are not always happy, and some had unhealthy work habits (inbox obsession!) and numerous chronic health conditions.

I had my first bout with bad health back in 2015. There were a few notable memories that left a deep impression on me. My late grandma became confused who I was. She slowly lost her memory and soon the ability to look after herself. I remembered her sobbing in despair about her circumstances during the few moments she recalled I was her eldest granddaughter. She passed away in May 2017.

In a few years later, my health would further deteriorate as I committed more hours into my career to numb my losses. I've since turned my life around with increased physical activity and a better diet. I still cave in to unhealthy cravings every now and then, resulting in the need to lose 10kg within the next 6 months. My cancer doctor is happy that I've managed to put on weight though!

To have a better understanding of what I want to invite into my life to stay, I started to explore and expose myself to new experiences of what I might enjoy. These experiments don't always work out well for me, but sometimes beautiful results bloom out of necessity!

Marrying into an allium-free lacto-ovo-vegetarian household motivated me to learn new recipes and find new ingredients to feed my family. Some of the new dishes I introduced to their diet include vegan scrambled eggs (firm tofu, nutritional yeast, turmeric) and orange chicken (orange rind, orange juice, vegetarian chicken which they would otherwise usually steam). Over time, I realized I actually enjoy the meal prepping process more than cooking. Perhaps it is the rhythmic ASMR-like sounds of my chopping.

Instead of condemning ourselves as plant killers, hubby and I signed up for a one-day gardening course to learn the basics and came home to experiment on our empty plant pots. After a few months, we have a little HDB garden. To date, we have harvested bitter gourd, spinach, sweet potato leaves, chili, ginger, peppermint, rosemary, basil, starfruit, etc.

Self-compassion helps me to rebuild my self-worth

It has only been a few years' since the nightmare series of traumatic experiences. I'm truly excited to see how much my life has already positively changed. Similar to my previous blog on travel adventures, I hope that this blog would last a few years to capture most of my self-love progress.

While some YouTubers retain their journals for flip-through videos and memories, I remembered tearing off pages from mine from time to time. These pages would involve negative episodes of my life that I've moved on from. Writing them down on helps to offload them from my mind, and tearing away those pages give me a sense of liberation, that these bad events no longer have a hold on me.

My autism diagnosis helps me to better understand my past experiences and thus to be more forgiving of myself, especially towards my autistic traits.

• Instead of being my best self-critic, I now try to speak kindly to myself, just as I would encourage a friend.

• I read up on autism to help myself understand my strengths and the areas where I may need more support in.

• Instead of over-controlling my movements whenever somebody is around, I permit myself to be at ease and to stim more often to self-regulate, especially when I'm anxious.

• I discovered that the short bristles of my silicone facial-cleansing brush make for a delightful tactile stim toy that I enjoy, and it's small and lightweight that I can hide it in my pocket when I'm outside.

"Remember, you have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn't work. Try approving of yourself and see what happens." — Louis Hay

I reframed my thoughts and no longer think of myself as a failure or an underachiever due to the past unhappy events. I did not live a half-hearted life but have given my best shot. I pulled myself out of the undesirable circumstances with incredible strength, dignity and self-respect.

During my days of struggles, I constantly reminded myself that I am worthy to be loved and cared for despite what I had experienced in toxic relationships. And thankfully, I have now attracted good people into my life to stay.

And most importantly, I started loving myself again, for the woman I have now become. I've changed my pronouns to she/they, as I do not identify with the 'woman roles' that society deems we should be. Neither am I the typical girly-girl, having put down my heavy mask and hardly donning any dresses or cosmetics. I am myself, with my idiosyncrasies.