Dear Kartik:

I am addressing you in this old 2014 thread because it is very, very unlikely that the members who posted here more than 7 years ago are still following this thread. Please feel free to ignore my post.

“I am fighting an endless battle with myself trying to love myself…  I became a master of suppression!… suppressing my feelings kept me safe from the wrath of this maniac I called my father and also kept that one weakling (my mother) happy. This way we could all pretend that nothing was wrong in our family… in this demand of meeting externally set standards, we seemed to have become excellent at suffocating ourselves… if we are striving to love ourselves, then we are fighting ourselves, and then in turn, maybe not loving ourselves” –

– perhaps the answers to your struggles are the antonyms of the words you used: fighting=> being at peace, master of suppression=> master of expression, suppressing your feelings=> expressing your feelings, pretending=> being true to yourself and to others, externally set standards=> internally set standards.

Loving yourself= no longer fighting with yourself, no more battles within, taking in fresh air, hushing our tension, our stress…

anita